The Language of Silence
by Gucci Kissa
Summary: She changed her name, she lives in hiding, constantly running from a dark figure who devotes himself to torturing her. When she thinks that she cannot go on, an old companion re-enters her life. But the last thing she needs is to fall in love with him.
1. Chapter One

Well this is my first and very lame attempt at fanfiction, so please treat me with the charity and sympathy you would render any writer who presents their first and very lame fanfiction. Um.alright..here's me "unleashing my imagination and freeing my soul."  
  
The Language of Silence  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Her senses drifted away into the tangerine, oily lighting of the room. The flames of the prehistoric lamp danced on the wall and she looked upon them with a sort of stolid fascination that overcame her smooth features. Her porcelain skin was burned by the asperity of the floor that she sat upon, clothed only in her undergarments, quickly galloping the rotten, yet scarce, food. There was no connection to the world, she felt isolated in the run down hotel in the more rotten part of Callisto, where truly existed no way of finding her. On the opposite side of the room lay a phone, a rather rare commodity for a place like the one where she was staying in. But she ignored it. It wasn't like she was going to make a phone call. She had no one to call now.  
  
The walls shook with an intensity; in the room next door two seemingly newlywed men were enjoying each other's company and letting the rest of the motel in on their business. The moans collided into a sort of jazzy, background blast that, instead of agitating the woman, relaxed her. She pressed her back against the wall and let the sugary inclinations of their voices massage her neck. It felt good to relax for a moment, to not have to care, to not have to worry about 'them.' It had been a long time since she had felt this secure, it had been a long time since she had felt anything.  
  
Suddenly, the phone rang. It's loud penetration made her jump up and look cautiously at it. Persistently it continued to ring, with long, loud, drawn out moans, as if it somehow hypnotizing her with its vibrations. Her eyes fixated on the receiver and for a moment she could not move. How could anyone find her here, this should have been the last place that they looked. How did they find her? How? Why? After all, she was no longer her old self, she was Rose Shields, she picked the name out herself. Something that one would not notice, would not suspect. The phone continued ringing.  
  
Slowly, she made her way toward it, crawling on her bruised knees upon the floor, it had been a while since she rose to height of the window. Who knew what may have been behind the glass, who might have been there, waiting. Slowly she raised the receiver and pressed it to her ear, afraid that it might explode in her hand, that a bullet might fly out of the object.  
  
"Hello?" she chanted.  
  
"Turn that shit down, you wanna fuck then do it on your own time you fucking bastards!" rang into the phone and she quickly drew it away from her head.  
  
"Stanley, this is Rose," she said, "you got the wrong number again."  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, Rosey" he said, "it's just---you have to understand a man needs his sleep."  
  
"I understand," she said quietly, "go back to sleep, Stanley, okay?"  
  
"Yeah," he mumbled.  
  
She sighed easily. She was getting worked up for nothing. The phone rang again.  
  
"Stanley, I told you to go back to sleep," she said into the receiver.  
  
"Miss Valentine?" the voice on the opposite end said and her eyes widened, "I've been looking for you for a very long time. I think we should have little chat."  
  
"I-I'm not---I think you got the wrong number----"  
  
"No, most certainly I'm speaking to exactly the right person."  
  
His voice sounded intimidating to her ears, and she wanted to jump out of her skin, to disappear, to not have to worry about anything she'd ever done or would do in her life, not have to worry about what would happen.  
  
"You better talk to me now," said the voice, "when I am still in a somewhat lenient mood."  
  
"I don't know what your talk---"  
  
"Do not be foolish, Miss Valentine, I know everything about you, where you were born, how you ended up being a bounty hunter, I even know about the accident."  
  
Faye quickly leveled to her feet and ran to the drawer where she had left her gun. Circling the room frantically as she firmly gripped the weapon, Faye's body shook compulsively. Why did this have to happen? Why?  
  
"I only want to have a talk with you, Miss Valentine, only a talk."  
  
"How did you find me?" She asked swiftly, turning off her light, trying to buy herself time to devise and escape route.  
  
"Let's just say, Miss Valentine, that we never lost you."  
  
She looked toward the window, moving closely to it, and trying to pry the cheap thing open.  
  
"No, Miss Valentine, you cannot go through there."  
  
She jumped back and got to the floor, a shot rang and it shattered the glass to bits. Faye screamed and a chuckle was heard on the other side of the phone. She dropped it to the ground and moved away slowly. Only now, in the dead silence, she noticed that the window was left untouched, but the noise from the neighboring room was no longer heard. She shook at the realization and fixated on the phone. Slow vibration escaped its barrier, long, drawn out---sobs. She listened closer, 'Rosey.'  
  
Quickly she picked it up again, "Stanley, are you all right?"  
  
All she heard was a groan.  
  
"Oh Stanley, I won't let them hurt you."  
  
She had no control over that, but she preferred to lie to herself, to bar her mind from singing a malicious tune that she had for so long tried to blot out. She stopped herself from thinking, "It's Jet all over again."  
  
But that didn't work, and suddenly, she stood in that room again, looking down, crying histerically, closing her eyes, ripping out her hair. It was all her fault. The man lay lifeless on the floor, and she could do nothing to reverse time. So many had come into her life and left, and she went absolutely mad. She ripped her hair out, and she banged her knuckles against the wall, but nothing could save her from what had become of it all.  
  
Quickly, Faye pulled on some scattered clothing, a striped sweater, old, worn out pants, and heavy boots. Then, with a gun in hand, she looked for a way out. In the distance, through the drawn shades of the window, she saw a blue light. It transfixed her for a moment and she stopped moving, looking at it. A loud sound penetrated her, and some more caught her by surprise.  
  
Suddenly, countless gunshots aimed at her and she fell to the floor, covering her head with her arms. Through the loud chaos, her head pained, and she wept helplessly. The ringing suddenly ceased and she raised her head quickly, wondering what had occurred. She looked up, the room had been destroyed but she was still alive. Quietly, she crawled out of the room into the narrow hall. Quickly pacing to her feet, she looked on the floor only to scream, slapping her hand against her mouth. There lay a corpse of Stanley, bloody, lifeless. But he didn't have to go. It wasn't yet his time to go. And it was all her fault. All the miseries in the world were her fault.  
  
"Miss Valentine," said a voice and she fixated on a tall figure. His face was hidden by the dark, but she could tell he had dark features. She stepped backwards at the sight of the gun in his hand, hanging in a sort of matter of fact way from his fingers, "Or can I call you Faye?"  
  
She screamed piercingly, causing the figure to lose its concentration, loosening the gun in his hand. She quickly pulled her own out and into his direction. He did not move.  
  
"Where are the others?" She asked quickly.  
  
"The others, Miss Valentine?"  
  
"Your men---the others!"  
  
"I assure you there are no---" he continued softly.  
  
"Tell me where they are or I'll blow your head off!" she screamed.  
  
There was silence for a moment. She heard his chuckle. It made her tighten the gun in her hands.  
  
"You can't kill me," he said.  
  
"Yes I can!" she replied.  
  
"No you can't."  
  
"Why not?" she said, almost in indignation.  
  
"Because you're a woman. Women don't kill."  
  
"Oh yes they fucking do!" She screamed, leveling higher her gun, "don't you come any closer."  
  
He laughed, "Not your kind of women."  
  
"My kind is precisely the kind that kills, put your gun on the floor or I shoot."  
  
"If you were going to shoot me, you would have done it already, it's better off for me to be dead anyway" he said, "You can kill me, but you can't."  
  
"Stop it!" she screamed, "And do what I tell you!"  
  
He laughed again, approaching from the dark, his body gradually coming into light.  
  
"Well," he said, "anything for the pretty lady. And you are very pretty."  
  
He walked toward her, her hands began to shake.  
  
"Look at that hair of yours," he continued, "I wish I was the man who could run my hands through that hair."  
  
She began to back away.  
  
"Oh yes," he moved forward, "I'd do anything to kiss those lips."  
  
His tone was cold and she began to shake on the inside.  
  
"But of course," he paused, "my career comes first. I simply can't allow myself to do it, our relationship has to remain a professional one."  
  
"Stop, don't move any closer!" She screamed.  
  
"Or you'll what?" He laughed, frightening her, "kill me? Then go ahead and kill me. Shoot me, shoot me---"  
  
And she shot him. It was in the arm in which he held his gun. It dropped to the floor. He swung his head back and impulsively she ran down the hall, into one of the rooms.  
  
"Miss Valentine!" she heard his sarcastically exclaim from behind as if he had not just been shot, but not hearing footsteps. For some reason, he wasn't following her. It scared and confused Faye.  
  
In the room, she saw the corpses of two men, half naked, lying on the bed, drenching the sheets in red. She wanted to vomit but stopped herself in time. She looked outside. It was dark, and she quickly crawled to a window. Slowly opening it, she rushed out of the hotel, putting her attention into the small forest that lay ahead. A mile or two, and the highway would appear. She ran like the wind, not once daring to look back.  
  
Behind her, the dark figure watched from the window. She was a pretty one, he thought. To end it here and now would be no fun. 


	2. Chapter Two

Thank you sooooo-o much for all the wonderful reviews. It's truly inspirational. It's like---there's no better feeling than checking your account and looking and seeing ten reviews there. I mean don't you go "Hell YEAH!!!!" I do.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
In time, it would be daylight. She thought about it constantly, lying submerged under the scattered newspaper she'd found in the street, inside of a deserted bus station. Had she not been fortunate enough to find this settlement, she very well might have died. Callisto was a cold planet, a very cold planet. Running through the forest at night, trying to attain the nearest highway in her light clothing had numbed down her legs and arms. Nevertheless, at the time she was so obsessed with her survival that she did not notice the cold. She ran without stopping, ran like the wind, ran like she'd never run before. Only when she reached town, when she breathed smoothly for some minutes, did she begin to notice the white steam coming from her mouth, her body trembling. Only now did she feel her soul drifting out of her out of her own body. It should not have been this way. She shivered and panted, she felt the cold pavement against her legs, she leaned her head on a wall, closing her eyes. She was afraid to fall asleep. It was not a good idea to fall asleep in the cold. But she wanted to sleep. It had been a long time since she'd done that, since she hadn't woken up from terrible nightmares.  
  
And suddenly, she was on the Bebop again, lying on the couch, her legs up, resting her head. Suddenly, she was driving her spaceship. Suddenly, she was running with a gun. Suddenly, he was by her side.  
  
And then she was transmitted to another place, a cold place, standing with her gun stretched out, shivering, crying. She did not know what it meant, or how it would all end up for her, but another's fate she knew for certain. She could have rescued him; she could have rescued them all. All the men in her life whom she loved on some level. But she was not strong enough to rescue them; she no longer had the strength, or could handle the heartbreak. She learned to hate those men, to hate them for loving them so much and not being able to help them. Stanley, Jet---She closed her eyes, trying to prevent from crying.  
  
"Where are you going?" she said briskly, holding her gun to his head, "Why are you going?"  
  
He stared back at her; Spike studied her and even now his multicolored eyes paralyzed her from the waist down. She hated that he had such a strong effect on her, she hated that while she saw him as her greatest friend, he saw her as nothing more than an overbearing little woman.  
  
"You told me once," she continued, "that the past did not matter."  
  
She paused, looking at him, drinking in her last sight, trying to understand it but being unable. And that angered her.  
  
"You're the one who's tied to their past!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.  
  
Without thought, he leaned into her. She instinctively thrust her armed hand down. This was the closest proximity their faces had ever been in and she could feel his hot breath upon her skin. She inhaled his scent, a mix of cigarettes, and brandy, and tragedy. Nothing better than that bittersweet remorse of a man who'd fallen in battle, but never died. He was like a deteriorating moth, like a mere shadow of a man. He was missing a part of himself, just as a man would be missing an arm or a leg; he was missing his heart, a heart that disappeared when he saw the death of the only woman he ever loved. Spike had nothing to live for anymore, and that was why he was choosing not to. But Faye could not witness the death of the only man she'd ever cared for. He was her greatest companion; the Bebop was her only home. Already Ed and Ein were gone. She could not handle it; she could not let him, too get away. Her family was falling apart, and the only things he could say were pointless riddles. She hated him for that.  
  
"Look into my eyes," he said. They were two different colors. She always wondered why.  
  
She gasped, afraid to really look and see the horrid truth stare back at her. But she had no choice.  
  
"One of them is a fake," he continued, "because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I had been seeing the past in one eye and the present in another. I had believed that what I saw was not all of reality---"  
  
"Don't tell me things like that!" she interrupted him, anger growing, anger and despair, "you never told me anything about yourself, don't tell me stuff like that now!"  
  
"I thought I was watching a dream that I could never awaken from," he said morosely, "before I knew it, the dream was all over."  
  
He began to walk away, not looking back, not caring. He began to desert everything he had ever known, everything that had ever been important to him, everything for a foolish idea. She had to stop him; she had to make him understand that misery was paramount, that you had to learn to live with it. It would be brave to live with it. It would be cowardly to run away, or try to end it, ending yourself in the process.  
  
"My---memory came back," she said slowly and he stopped. Maybe he did care, just a little. Faye faced a wall, she began to tremble, locking her hands in knuckles, "But---nothing good came of it. There was no place for me to return to. This was the only place I could go back to!" She paused, tears began streaming from her eyes, "But now you're leaving---where are you going? Why do you have to go?"  
  
She paused, remembering all the olden times, when this didn't have to bother her, when she was just a child running through a green field. She remembered all her friends, she remembered making that videotape, she remembered all the imaginations she had about growing up. She dreamed that she would be a beautiful, happy woman with a family and a lot of friends. And she dreamed that she would always have food in her stomach, that she would always feel loved. But most of all she dreamed that she would rarely cry, and whenever tears would escape her eyes would only be moments when she was struck by an element of a movie or soap opera. She wanted her life to be like one big fairy tale. Now, it had become a nightmare.  
  
And she stared at him, and she held back her sobs, and all that she could do was scream, "Are you telling me you're just going to throw your life away?"  
  
"I'm not going there to die," he said, as if he didn't notice her dilemma, "I'm going there to see if I really am alive."  
  
He walked away now and she began to hate him. She wanted to scream that he was alive. That his heart was beating, that he was breathing. He had people that loved him, a chance to make something of himself. He had everything. He was alive! He did not need to get killed in order to prove that. She wanted to tell him that, but she didn't.  
  
Instead, she aimed her gun at him. She wanted to shoot him; the temptation was great. She wanted him to die, she didn't want to have to live with the fact that he was leaving her and she could do nothing about it. She was angry, she hated him. She wanted to shoot. She wanted to, but couldn't. She fired her gun up at the ceiling, one after another, as he swiftly moved out of her sight. After he was gone, she plopped herself against a wall and broke into tears. She knew this was the last time she would ever see him again. It was.  
  
"What's your name?" the beautiful woman said, as her unrestrained blonde hair whipped in the wind.  
  
"Faye," she said and leaned on the window pavement of the red convertible.  
  
"Faye?" the woman asked, almost surprised.  
  
"Faye Valentine, a common name. What's yours?"  
  
"Julia," the beautiful woman replied.  
  
"Julia?" Faye exclaimed, staring with alarm at her, she was the one, she was certain of it.  
  
"It's a common name," Julia said.  
  
  
  
"Are you in some kind of trouble, Faye?" Jet asked her.  
  
"No, Jet," she replied coldly.  
  
"Are you sure? There were some people through here, wondering about you."  
  
She sprang up, "What did you tell them?"  
  
"Nothing. Told them it's been a while since I've seen you around. It's true."  
  
She leaned back on the couch, "so here's not safe anymore."  
  
"What's going on, Faye?" he repeated.  
  
"Nothing," she said, "I have to go now."  
  
"I'm worried about you. You haven't been the same since---since then."  
  
"I am the same, Jet," she smiled, "you've just forgotten how I am."  
  
"Maybe," he paused, "you must come back and visit the old man occasionally."  
  
"Why am I here, do you think?"  
  
"Visit me, huh?" he smiled.  
  
"Yes." She returned.  
  
"Then how about a cup of tea? I've been getting it for free, me being a retired senior citizen and all."  
  
"I would," she sighed, "but I have to go."  
  
She was on the way out the door when he stopped her, "Hey Faye," he said, "if you ever are in trouble, visit my old friend Jeff. He lives on Callisto, he might have something for you."  
  
She smiled at the old man's kindness, he, too, had changed after Spike's death.  
  
"Thank you," Faye said, "I will."  
  
She turned to walk and he stopped her again.  
  
"Another thing, Faye."  
  
"Yes?" she turned.  
  
"Take care of yourself, huh? And if you ever get a chance, seek out the kid. Maybe she wants to---you know---go back, like old times?"  
  
Faye realized that Jet was lonely, that was why he had been so kind. She suddenly felt bad for him, she wanted to soothe him, hug him, never leave him. But she couldn't. Staying would mean putting his life, as well, into danger. She could never stop. She always had to run.  
  
"I will, Jet," she smiled, "I will."  
  
"Thank you, Faye," Jet said, "take care of yourself. There's not enough good women in this world. You're a good woman."  
  
She did not answer. She turned and began to walk towards her spaceship, not turning back. She did not know it at the time, but this was the last thing she'd ever heard Jet tell her.  
  
  
  
  
  
Faye walked into the store. It was seemingly innocent. The doors were automatic, and the interior was quite modern. Not many businesses on Callisto were like that. This was an exception. Faye supposed all of Jet's friends were just like him. Although it had been a year since Jet's death, although she had spent the night on the floor of a cold, deserted bus station after almost being shot in a seedy hotel, she could not stop. She remembered Jeff. She had found out his whereabouts months ago, but never felt a true surge of desperation until now.  
  
She walked in; a bell rang. In a few seconds, an old, short man walked out. He was wrinkled and old, sweat dripped from his nose. Faye looked at him with disgust.  
  
"What do you want, what do you want?" He exclaimed like an angry Italian woman.  
  
"I'm here to talk to---Jeff."  
  
"Jeff?" He screamed in rage, "Is this some kind of joke?"  
  
"No," she said, "I need to talk to Jeff."  
  
"Little Missy, how about you leave now. No need for your pranks."  
  
"But---" she tried to protest.  
  
"Leave, or I'll call the---"  
  
Suddenly, a young, built man came out. He had dark eyes and shiny black hair. He was almost handsome, and Faye admitted it. This must have been the first time she'd seen a handsome man in a while.  
  
"Jeff is my father," the young man said, "he died a month ago."  
  
"I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't know."  
  
"Who are you?" the young man asked.  
  
The old man walked from behind the counter and out of the store.  
  
"I'm Rose Shields," she said, "Jet sent me."  
  
"Jet, huh?" the young man said, "How do you know him?"  
  
"I used to travel with him. I was part of his crew."  
  
"Why aren't you still with him?"  
  
"I---" she paused, "I'm not with him, that's all that matters."  
  
"Alright, then, Rose," he said, "what are you looking for?"  
  
Faye leaned on the counter, "I need a spaceship," she said, "and some ammunition. Do you have paper?"  
  
He gave her an old notebook and she scribbled objects onto it, pushing it back. He studied the list.  
  
"Well, little lady, you sure know your weaponry," he smiled, "it will take me a bundle to get these for you, and a spaceship too, when do you need it by?"  
  
"As early as you can get it. And I need a gun right away."  
  
"I'll get it soon, but it's going to cost you."  
  
"How much?" she asked.  
  
"Fifty million wulongs. Spaceship not included."  
  
"What?" she instinctively ejaculated.  
  
"Well, weapons don't come cheap, you know."  
  
She breathed calmly, "well," she said, slightly unbuttoning her shirt, "I'm sure we can make other arrangements."  
  
"If by that you mean what I think you mean, I'm not interested in women."  
  
Faye looked at him angrily, "I'll get you the money!" she exclaimed, "You just get me the weapons."  
  
"Deal," he said, tucking the list away.  
  
Faye began walking quickly to the door; suddenly she stopped, remembering something.  
  
"Oh and by the way," She said, "this conversation never happened."  
  
"Of course not," he smiled.  
  
She walked out of the store. 


	3. Chapter Three

Oh I realized that I forgot to say in the beginning, I don't own Cowboy Bebop.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
She lay her head against the bar and listened to the melody. It was smooth and soft, a sort of inviting reverie that drew her heart out of its chest and penetrated her deep within the pit of her stomach. Faye was crying again, she always cried when she was in bars like this one, something about it reminded her of the past. Somewhere, buried deep in her subconscious, was the memory of something blurry and out of place. It made her head pain when she looked up at the stage, when she saw a seedy, singing queen on top. She sang of love and beauty, none of which, Faye expected, had she ever encountered in her life.  
  
Faye never had it either. She never tasted the pleasures of unconditional happiness, she never ran through a field holding someone's arm and laughing uncontrollably. She never lay in someone's arms and felt complete happiness from the simple action of being next to the one she loved.  
  
Faye suddenly remembered her mother, a beautiful, gentle, graceful woman. She always wanted to be like her mother. Even as a child she could remember herself in front of her dressing mirror, generously applying to herself her mothers lipstick, powder, and exotic perfumes. She remembered all the little spills, all the little giggles, all the little faults that, as a child, she loved to hate. She remembered her mother's face, as she stood with her arms crossed, dressed in a lilac frock, with beautiful black hair tied back, a face of mock anger but simultaneous satisfaction.  
  
She always wanted to be like her mother, care-free, almost perfect. She hated that she wasn't. She hated that she was living in an utterly different age, a different time to which she suddenly began to feel unaccustomed. Rarely did she feel this way, not until she was caught with a drink and nothing but tears of loneliness. She leaned her head over palm and closed her eyes.  
  
The bartender approached her. In his sympathetic gaze, she found herself basked.  
  
"Wanna tell me 'bout it?" he asked, while drying a skotch glass with a yellow towel.  
  
"Nah," she said slowly, trying to wipe away her tears frantically.  
  
"You okay?" the bartender continued.  
  
"Yeah," she lied, "I'm great."  
  
She placed the glass on the drying rack and hung the towel on his shoulder, "You don't look like it."  
  
"Who cares what I look like," Faye whispered, "I told you I'm okay so that means I am okay."  
  
"What's your name, anyhow?"  
  
"None of your business," Faye exclaimed, "get me another scotch."  
  
He quickly poured some into her glass and she watched it fill up with fascination. He found himself mezmerized at her green eyes. So sad, so lonely, she must have been through a lot. A customer sat next to her and he quickly served the man's order before returning to her.  
  
"You look like a Mandy to me," he said, "that playfullness in your face."  
  
"Not Mandy," she said, giving him the look of death.  
  
"Not Mandy, huh?" He smiled, "how about Sharon?"  
  
"Don't you have other customers?"  
  
"Delilah?" he asked, "that's a beautiful name. Sad beauty."  
  
"My name is not Delilah, just please go---"  
  
"Maybe Julia?" he interrupted.  
  
She stopped, staring at him for a moment.  
  
"Julia?" She whispered, there was something about that word rolling against her tongue, "Julia."  
  
"Am I right then?" the bartender questioned.  
  
"No!" she screamed angrily, before burying her face in her hands and beginning to cry.  
  
A moment passed, as she panted heavily, convulsing heavily her shoulders in the process.  
  
"I bet I can guess her name," a voice said from her right angle, and she looked up in shock, "Faye?"  
  
For a moment, she thought she was dreaming. She turned her head and her eyes filled to the rim with memories. She felt a shaking mist within the pit of her stomach and her heart beat increased into the thousands. She did not know what to say or what to do, for her gaze was directly fixated on a pair of magnetic eyes of two different colors. 


	4. Chapter Four

Wow it took me a lot this time. Oh well, I hope you like it.  
  
Chapter  
  
For a moment, she found herself transfixed. It was impossible, it couldn't possibly have been! She had been at his funeral, she had stood by Jet's side and cried. It couldn't possibly have been him, it just couldn't. She sprang up from her chair and ran outside. He followed her, quickly, swiftly. Faye wanted to get away but she couldn't bring herself to it. There he was, looking directly at her. She could feel his touch, experience the sensation of him next to her. And yet his hands were so cold, almost unreal.  
  
They stood in silence for a moment, staring at one another, experiencing one another. Faye figured it was her imagination at white heat. How else could he appear before her if he was already dead. She closed her eyes and reopened them, expecting that he would disappear. But there he was still, standing in front of her, existing.  
  
She began to pant loudly, her body shaking from the inside out. She was dreaming, she must have been dreaming. Was this a ghost standing in front of her? She could think of no other explanation.  
  
"Are you a ghost?" She said slowly.  
  
"A ghost?" He chuckled, "Aren't you a little too old to believe in superstition?"  
  
She suddenly felt her hand reaching for the cigarette pack she kept in her pocket. She quit months ago, but held on to one. She was saving it for a rainy day. It had rained.  
  
"Spot me one of those," he said.  
  
"No," she shook her head impulsively, "you're a ghost you can't smoke."  
  
"Faye," he sighed, almost irritated, "are you going insane or is it just that scotch giving you a headache?  
  
She placed her hands in her pockets and began to circle around the street, afraid to look up at him.  
  
"You're not real," she reasoned, "You're not real, you're not alive, you're just a figment of my imagination."  
  
"Alright," he sighed, "this is starting to get ridiculous."  
  
She shook her head, "You're not fooling me, Spike! I'm just drunk and upset and---"  
  
"It must have been a hell of a lot of alcohol to drink in order to see things so clearly, things that aren't there, that is."  
  
"Maybe that bartender put something in my drink!" she exclaimed, "That must be it! The damn bartender, I knew he looked suspicious."  
  
"Oh Faye," Spike sighed, scratching the back of his head, "Now you're just being paranoid."  
  
"I must have taken some sort of a hallucinogen!" She declared, "and you are nothing more but a figment of my imagination!"  
  
He sighed, "Listen, I don't have time for this."  
  
She tried to pull away when he grabbed her by the arm and began to quickly walk forward. She felt safe when he touched her, almost as if she no longer had anything to fear. They re-entered the bar and he positioned her at a small table in the corner, far from everyone's view, although the entire restaurant was fixated on them.  
  
She lay back in the chair in submission, she no longer wanted to fight against it. He was there, all that mattered was that he was there. She was not alone anymore and the realization penetrated her deep inside, tearing apart the pit of her stomach. She wasn't alone anymore, she wasn't alone anymore, she wasn't alone.  
  
"Look," Spike said, "I know you must be surprised, I promise you I'll explain everything to you."  
  
She laughed in madness, "Oh no, don't even bother. Dead men I once knew come back to life all the time!"  
  
"All right, maybe the bartender did put something in your drink," Spike smiled.  
  
For a moment, they shared a nostalgic memory. Just like the old times. They both missed the old times. It vanished as quickly as it came.  
  
"So what have you been up to in the last two years?" Spike smiled as he looked her over. She had aged, her face had matured. But in those eyes he could still see the same cunning outlook, the same Faye Valentine.  
  
"Oh nothing much," she hurried with words, "Just trying to make a living."  
  
"Yes," he said, "and winding up in a dump like Callisto."  
  
"A Bounty Hunter's heaven," she smiled, "What can I say, I am a woman with my own reasons for things."  
  
"Yes," he paused, "it has, I suppose, nothing to do with the past."  
  
She suddenly remembered Gren and she knew he was remembering him too. Only about a handful of people had touched Faye in some way over her many years of life. Gren was among them. She could never forget the sad emotion of his eyes, his hard grip, his embrace. She remembered the night he rescued her, she remembered when he listened and understood what she had to say. And of course she remembered that name that he had mentioned during the course of their lengthy conversations. But she wasn't going to remember that name, she wasn't going to confine it within the realms of her mind again. From the day Spike left the Bebop, she vowed to herself never to remember the past. It didn't work out the way she planned, but somehow she still felt obliged at certain points. If she remembered that name now, she would certainly break into tears. In truth, she didn't want to remember it for a different reason.  
  
She didn't want to remind him.  
  
"It has nothing to do with the past," she paused, "Nothing exists any longer to tie me to the past. Everything is over now, and I'm looking to start fresh."  
  
"I'd drink to that," he said, his eyes suddenly fixating onto empty space as if a painful memory overtook him, but he refused to fall victim to it, "but you don't need any more to drink."  
  
"Oh Spike," she sighed with an insatiable grief, "The glass became my confident, and the scotch my truest friend. What is there is to say about women like me?"  
  
He smiled for a moment, looking into her eyes, "Whatever there is to say, I'm not the one to say it."  
  
She smiled, a sorrowful smile, a look of exhaustion and fear. She wanted to break away from everything but once again she was comfronted by the past. It had been as fat had prophesized, and none of her resolutions could ever come true.  
  
"But I have something to say about that," she suddenly heard a hoarse voice, looking up first at Spike and then at the tall figure that stood in the middle of the bar. He was dressed in a fur coat and held in his arms a large gun. Just by hearing his voice, without even having to look at his face, Faye knew that this was not the man she'd seen earlier, but she had no doubt that he was sent by that man.  
  
Spike looked over, non-chalantly placing a cigarette into his mouth and giving the man a lopsided grin. "You talkin' to me?" he asked.  
  
"Not to you, to the lady you're with," he smiled, "Rose Shields, was it?"  
  
Spike stared at Faye with a smile, "Nothing's up, huh?" he cooed, "just trying to make a living?"  
  
Faye laughed innocently, drunkedly through her teeth, nothing could upset her now, "Sure."  
  
"Oh, and the guy with the shotgun, is he your jealous boyfriend or should I be worried?"  
  
Suddenly she realized where she was, and the look she gave him proved enough to drive Spike into removing the revolver from his pocket and shooting the man in the knee. He dropped the gun and fell to the floor. Instinctively, Spike grabbed Faye's hand and began to run forward, through the door, and away.  
  
Outside, a group huddled in search of their companion, as Spike impulsively fought each one off. One made a move at Faye and she hit him in the stomach with her leg. Quickly, he fell back and she jumped away into a shadow only to be caught by the shoulders and pulled away from the scene. Spike was involved with three men at the time and barely noticed his protégé's disappearance.  
  
In the grim darkness of the night Faye shivvered within his arms. His strong, deadly grip overcame her as his fingers roughly fondled her skin. His lips ached at her neck, maliciously pursuing the inclination of her chin, engaging himself, engorging himself, against her. She let out a moan and his hand instinctively thrust against her mouth, pressing his fingers again her inner lining of her lips. She dared not move, not even breathe. He had overtaken her and suddenly she felt as if the end was going to come soon. Her body ached in his arms and suddenly her life began to flash in front of her eyes. To think, that when at last she had found an old companion, a man who held such a dear place in her heart, her own sade life would go. To think that such was the irony of fate.  
  
"Hello," he whispered into her ear, his lips brushing up against her, "we meet again, Faye Valentine."  
  
She closed her eyes, sobbing silently.  
  
"That man," the voice continued to trail down her spine, "does he mean a lot to you?"  
  
She shook her head impulsively, he removed his hand from her mouth, "No," she whjspered, "I barely know him at all."  
  
"Faye Valentine," he mused, "such a pretty name."  
  
And he was gone. He had darted into the darkness and he could have taken her with him, but he did not. She figured it was a ritual for him, as she stood and shook from cold and fear, invaded, soiled, distroyed. There was a possibility that she might not have lived through the night. It still existed that danger, that loss. But he had left her intact, he had left her. Why had he left her? She cried hopelessly, knowing that it was only a matter of time. He wanted to torture her first, before he had the chance to kill her. Eventually he would. That was, after all, why he was trailing her. Faye knew something that someone out there didn't want her to know. She had to die, there was not way around it.  
  
She began to remember that day. She remembered her tears, her cries. She remembered everything. The smell in the air, the color scheme of the room. Across the lavish restaurant sat her mark. An older man, a thin, unrounded individual who looked as if he did not belong in the tuxedo but seemed to handle very well a martini. Faye remembered how stunning she looked in the purple nightgown that hugged her hips and flexed her back. She remmebered how she played with her hair and how she crossed her legs as she sat next to him at the bar and asked for a light.  
  
"It's beat here tonight," she remarked, placing her perfectly molded arms on the bar.  
  
"Not with pretty ladies like you walking around, spicing it all up a notch."  
  
And suddenly, she was back in the cold, dark street. She was crying histerically, once again she had begun to remember. Spike shook her by her shoulders out of the inevitable trans.  
  
"Wake up," he screamed, "Come on Faye, don't go crazy on me now."  
  
Before she could stop herself, she plunged into his arms, sobbing unstoppably, wiping her tears on his shirt.  
  
"Come on, what's wrong? What's wrong?" he pleaded, placing his hands on her back.  
  
"It's them," she whispered sorrowfully, "it's them."  
  
"Who?" he demanded, "come on!" he shook her, "Who?"  
  
"Them," she cried, pushing through his hardness to his chest and hiding in his arms, "it's them, the people that killed Jet."  
  
And then, he did not speak a word. He hands only dug into her shoulders in a tight embrace.  
The star of Callisto seemed like a distant memory as Faye looked back on it from the window of Spike's spaceship. Since their last exchange, they had not spoken a word. They didn't need to, the air was too think for words anyway. Only one thing she could not deny. Now that she had found Spike, a sense of security overcame her. Almost as if she did not need to worry anymore, almost as if, for the first time in two years, she was utterly, unconditionally safe. Like a sleeping child in its little crib. 


	5. Chapter Five

I'm very sorry for the long wait, I'm just preoccupied with my real life right now. Oh well, I'll try to update more often from now on.  
  
Chapter 5  
"I can't believe we're doing this," Faye smiled, leaning her elbow onto the pavement of Spike's ship, "It's almost like old times, isn't it?"  
  
"Do you mind that or something?" he asked, lighting up a cigarette.  
  
"No," she shook her head; "It's just a little strange to me."  
  
"Well, accept it already and move on," he said, "It won't be like that forever."  
  
Faye looked at him with confusion, "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"You need fifty million for your spaceship, right?" he asked.  
  
"Right," she confirmed.  
  
"Well, I promised to help you out, just because I'm such a nice boy," he smiled, "but after that, we're going on our own again."  
  
She leaned her head, thinking about what he had said. It angered her, it upset her deeply; she wanted to say something but she held herself back. There was no need in troubling him. She admitted that she had many questions. How did he survive, where he was for over a year, and of course, how he continued living without her?  
  
Her, the mysterious silhouette glowing in the darkness, golden locks of hair, clear blue eyes. Her. Julia.  
  
"Are you okay?" Spike interrupted her train of thought.  
  
"Yes, I'm fine," she assured him, "I'm great."  
  
"Good," he said, because there goes our friend now.  
  
Dominic Dimaggio, a man in his late forties who was linked to several assassination attempts, and at least seven bombings of embassies and military bases. He was considered armed and highly dangerous, not to mention worth seventy million wulongs.  
  
Faye studied him and for a moment shrugged at the familiarity of his facial features. He reminded her of someone else from her murky past, someone whom she dreamed to forget, someone who, like all the other men in her life save Spike, passed away before her very eyes. But she didn't want to remember him, with his gray eyes and understanding expressions, with his deep sincerity and worldliness. If she had ever felt a true connection with a man it was with him. She was in love with him, she knew she was. He made her feel safe, wanted, he made her feel permanent. Nothing was ever substantial in this world except for him. She loved him, loved him, loved him. She loved him and she lost him, and she did not want to revisit the past.  
  
The current bounty was entering the lounge outside of which Spike's ship was parked. He opened the door and got out, Faye following him, as they leisurely, hand in hand, walked inside of the building.  
  
It was suddenly coming back to her as she walked, the purple nightgown, his kind and understanding eyes. Suddenly, she did not want Spike there. She wanted to be alone, she vied for even the slightest possibility that it was not Spike who was alive but the kindhearted stranger she met in that lavish restaurant that day. He may have been her bounty, she may have meant nothing by her slight infatuation, but time took its toll. She wanted to see him again, but she knew it was impossible. He had died on the floor in her arms, she had to move on, she had to concentrate on the task at hand, on Dominic Dimaggio.  
  
Dimaggio sat alone at a table, talking to a buxom waitress in a miniskirt. The young vixen soon left.  
  
"This is your chance," Spike whispered to Faye.  
  
"What do you mean?" She asked.  
  
"Go over there and talk to him."  
  
"Me?" she protested, "why me?"  
  
"Men tend to be a little more inviting when they see---you know---you."  
  
"That's wrong on so many levels," Faye shook her head.  
  
"You want me to go over there and shake my ass a little? I mean, I'd love to do it Faye, but I don't our friend would appreciate that too much."  
  
She groaned, "Fine, I'll go. But what are you going to be doing?"  
  
"Surveying the area," he declared, "When you're sure he's unarmed, show me a little gesture, okay?"  
  
"What kind of gesture?" she leaned in.  
  
"Oh come on, figure something out," he said, his gaze already wading.  
  
"Fine, I'm off."  
  
"Yes okay," he smiled, moving away, "me too."  
  
Faye looked at his back, he had gotten lost in the crowd. Some ten seconds later, her was on the opposite side of the restaurant, talking to the blonde waitress.  
  
"Surveying the area, huh?" Faye sighed, "All men are bastards."  
  
Pushing her breasts up, she strolled over to Dominic, sitting alone at the table. Tossing her hair gracefully, she approached and reached for a cigarette.  
  
"Got a light?" She asked with a smile.  
  
"No," he said, looking away from her, "Smoking is repulsive, and smokers disgust me."  
  
"Oh," she awkwardly scattered to dispose of the cigarette, "Me too, this one is for a friend."  
  
She sat down in a chair next to him, leaning her body in such a way that her cleavage shamelessly shone at him. He studied her in miscomprehension.  
  
"It's beautiful here, isn't it?" she smiled.  
  
"Nothing special," he sipped his coffee, "Just like all the other places in this sorry little town."  
  
"I agree," she nodded, "It's pretty beat here. If it was up to me, I'd put a little fun into it."  
  
"Yes," he scratched his head, "fun."  
  
Faye crossed her legs and placed her hand onto his across the table, "Well, if they're not having fun, there's no reason we can't."  
  
He pushed his hand out from underneath her own.  
  
She grabbed for it, "So, what do you say? Would you like to have some fun?"  
  
"Listen," he said, his voice deeply annoyed, "I'm not interested. Since when did they let whores like you facilitate these places anyway?"  
  
"Whores?" She screamed in indignation, "Where do you go off calling me a whore?"  
  
"I understand you call yourselves working girls. It makes no difference to me, I'm not interested."  
  
"I'm not a hooker!" Faye exclaimed, "Listen, you got it all wrong. I'm just here with a friend of mine having fun, that's no reason for you to insult me!"  
  
"I'm sorry, my sister is drunk again," she suddenly felt someone's hands on her waist, she turned to see that it was Spike. His touch made her quiver as he spun her in a different direction, moving his face close to hers and whispering, "What the hell are you doing?"  
  
"He's strange," she whispered back, "it's like he's not interested or something."  
  
"And I bet that's never happened to you before," Spike replied sardonically, "I'm sorry again," he turned towards the man, "I promise she won't bother you any more."  
  
Dominic was wearing a different expression on his face now. It was as if he was a completely different man. He faced Spike with interested, inviting glances.  
  
"Well, you're welcome to join me for a drink," Dimaggio smiled, "If you're interested."  
  
"I'd love to," Spike said, fixating on his target as if he was wooing a woman, "if my sister isn't too much trouble."  
  
"Oh no," Dimaggio shook his head, "not at all."  
  
The next minutes were a blur. Spike and his boyfriend flirted shamelessly, almost to the point where Faye felt a touch of jealousy. Apparently, Dominic was more interested in Spike, silly, dirty Spike, than he could ever be in Faye, beautiful, clean Faye.  
  
"Oh, where do you go off drinking coffee?" Spike laughed, "The night is young, how about a round of scotch?"  
  
"Scotch?" Dominic stared at him, "I don't know, I better not---"  
  
"Waitress!" Spike called, "Get us something to drink, and make it quick."  
  
"Oh but I don't drink," Dominic protested, "I get badly hungover."  
  
"Oh don't worry about that," Spike smiled, "A little prairie oyster and it's all cleared up."  
  
"Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt."  
  
It didn't. Thirty minutes later, Dominic Dimaggio, the established terrorist, the armed and highly dangerous man could no longer control himself.  
  
"It's loud in here. I live nearby," Spike said to Dominic, "if you would like we could continue our discussion there."  
  
"What about your---sister?"  
  
"I can drop her off, and then we can be alone," Spike smiled seductively, "If you know what I mean."  
  
Without thought Dominic agreed. He happily followed Spike out of the restaurant, glancing coldly at Faye. She shook her head as she followed them, poor guy.  
  
As they neared the spaceship, Spike, in a matter-of-fact way, pulled out his gun and pressed it to drunken Dominic's head.  
  
"You're under arrest," Spike said with a yawn.  
  
"A cowboy?" Dominic sighed.  
  
Spike nodded.  
  
"Oh you have got to be shitting me."  
  
"That's thirty five for you and thirty five for me," Spike laughed, as they sat in his spaceship after having redeemed the criminal for their reward.  
  
"That's great, now all I need is fifteen more and we never have to see each other again."  
  
"You must really be looking forward to that," he smiled, "Not seeing my face for another three years.  
  
"Yes," she nodded, "I'm mad at you."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You could have come up with something more glamorous than 'my sister is drunk,' don't you think?"  
  
"What can I say?" Spike smiled, "I just think you're still bitter that he wasn't interested in you."  
  
"It doesn't count if he's gay," she laughed, "but you, you're a slut!"  
  
"Oh and I'm proud of it too," he smiled, "but I don't like that word, slut. I prefer working girl."  
  
"Men," Faye sighed, feeling a sort of relief.  
  
"Women," he replied. 


	6. Chapter Six

Sorry for the long wait, it's spring break and I have a life---I think  
  
Chapter 6  
  
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"So, who's the next lucky contestant?" Faye asked, leaning back on her bed with a box of noodles and chap sticks in hand. They had rented a cheap motel room. The motel was overflowed on this particular day, and only one room with two beds was available.  
  
"Lucky contestant?" Spike asked, looking up from his duties next to the laptop.  
  
"Next bounty, whatever you like to call it," she brushed her hand through her hair.  
  
"Well you're quick, we've only just got our last one," he smiled.  
  
"Oh yes, you and your damn graces," she giggled, "come to think of it, lunkhead, that suit makes your butt look big."  
  
"Now would be the wrong time to comment on that yellow thing you wear, the color really doesn't suit your scrawny little complexion. I'm not surprised Dominic wasn't interested."  
  
"Lunkhead," she threw a chap stick at him.  
  
"Please, hold back all that violence!"  
  
She laughed and suddenly a random thought came into her mind, "Spike you never did tell me how you got out."  
  
He studied her, "Of the closet?"  
  
"No!" she exclaimed, scratching her leg in an uneasy way and staring at him with a fearful anticipation. He knew what she meant, and she knew he didn't want to know. He pretended that he didn't, he didn't want the moment ruined by silly memories. What happened to him during those fatal moments, during that one night that forever decided his destiny? He was still haunted by the troubled sound of that beautiful woman's voice, the voice of that woman that he had loved so much once, a woman whose sadly hopeful words still rang in his head.  
  
"Let's run away somewhere, where no one else is---it will be like watching a dream."  
  
And slowly she began to fade. He no longer cared, he told himself. He was silly for ever caring. He could not even remember her name anymore, and he wanted to keep it that way.  
  
Why did Faye have to bring it up? Why couldn't she pretend that she didn't know or at least suspect what had happened? He remembered her on that night, cold, destitute, and desolate. She was shaking as she begged him not to leave her. He was stupid then, and now he found it to be too distressing to imagine how different things would have been if he had only followed Faye's advice. If he had only stayed with Faye that night, if he had only chosen her out of the only two women that ever meant anything to him.  
  
And suddenly, the room was in grim silence. Faye sighed, looking down, pushing out of herself the words, "Spike, how did you survive---that night-- -with Vicious----after she---"  
  
He was angry now. She preposterous enough to say it, to speak these words. How dare she mingle in his personal life? How dare she?  
  
"Who do you think you are?" he exclaimed, "who do you think you are to ask me that?"  
  
She could see that he was angry, but she didn't care. She needed to know what had become of him, how he managed to pull through, how he managed to clutch his sanity even after losing---her.  
  
"Spike, don't get me wrong," she tried to calm him, "Please don't get angry, it's just---"  
  
"What gives you the right?"  
  
"Spike I deserve to know!"  
  
"Why?" he exclaimed, "why do you deserve to know?"  
  
She groped for words but none came. It was that same familiar numbness. He was there and simultaneously he wasn't. With every moment his was slipping through her fingers and instinctively she tried to hold him back.  
  
"Why don't I deserve to know?" was all that she could say.  
  
"You don't deserve to know because it is my life, it is my life, my life, my---" He was breaking down, another word and he would have collapsed. With intensity he slapped the wall.  
  
She wanted to hold him in her arms, for the first time in her life she felt like the one in control, she felt like the one calming him, saving him. She was always weaker until this moment. She suddenly realized that the man who stood before her was not as she had first supposed the unaltered Spike of the good old times. He was an entirely different person altogether, unsuccessfully attempting to mask his broken heart. He was pitiful to look at, but she could not help but stare.  
  
"Then try to trust me. If we ever have anything in the world between us it should be trust. Why are you so upset, Spike? Tell me what happened to you!"  
  
He lifted up his shirt to reveal his torso. Once slender and smooth, it was so no longer. Through his stomach ran a long, deep scar, unkempt marks of stitches still visible by the naked eye. She stared at it with fascination; she reached out her hand to touch it. He roughly moved away.  
  
"This is what happened," he said quietly, "this should suffice, I think."  
  
She was transfixed, "And what about Ju---"  
  
"Enough about me," he interrupted her cruelly, "what about you? Those guys in the bar the other night, you changing your name to---Rose Shields?"  
  
"Forget it!" she exclaimed, walking away from him.  
  
"What? You're not so straightforward yourself," he jeered, "so eager to find out the intimate details of my life but you never succumb to my interrogations. Where is all that trust your base your preaching on? Where is that trust?"  
  
She kept walking. He kept speaking.  
  
"Trust," he teased, "Your goddamn trust."  
  
And she was gone. With tears in her eyes she walked to the lobby, sinking into a chair and burying her face in her hands.  
  
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The purple gown returned to her. The high class restaurant. And of course, him.  
  
"It's beat here tonight," she smiled, crossing her legs.  
  
"Not with pretty ladies like you walking around, spicing it all up a notch," he replied with a charming grin.  
  
She shook her head playfully; "You flatter."  
  
"I don't believe in flattery," he smiled, sipping his martini, "I tell it like it is."  
  
"An honest man," she observed, leaning her arms on the bar and looking into his gray eyes, "that's quite the distinction."  
  
"Now you flatter."  
  
"Nope," she smiled, "I can assure you, I am quite the honest woman."  
  
He smiled, taking a cigar out of his pocket and lighting it with his silver lighter. Faye watched as he did these things, a graceful, almost ritualistic manner. It intrigued her; it inspired her. He had a sort of worldliness about him, being an older man. He might have been a little younger than Jet, or perhaps a little older. She wasn't sure; his movements seemed both, classic and modern, to her.  
  
"Would you like one?" he asked.  
  
"I don't know," she smiled, "Rumor is, those things are bad for you."  
  
He laughed, "But that's the beauty of happiness."  
  
She smiled, "Cancer?"  
  
"No," he corrected her as if she were a child, "immediate gratification."  
  
She nodded in confusion.  
  
"What I'm trying to get at here is that many things are bad for you. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying them"  
  
She studied him with admiration. She had done the unthinkable; she had connected to a bounty, a largely considerable bounty.  
  
"Shields, James Shields," he introduced himself, stretching out his hand,  
  
"Faye Valentine," as Nabokov once said, she 'sealed her fate gratefully.'  
  
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"You look so beautiful when you are asleep," James whispered in her ear as she opened her eyes. It had been a troubling month for the two of them, constantly running, constantly hiding. Hiding from everyone, from the law and the crime alike. This was the life of a fugitive with a large bounty on his head, the life of him and of his lover.  
  
Lover, Faye thought. That was all that she was to him but she didn't care. She felt safe in his arms; he was the one man who ever truly validated her. She was in a humble position, she had realized it and admitted to herself that she was in love with James. Indeed, she did not know how she was ever going to live if he had left her. He would have been the second man in her life to do that, and it scared her that the love she felt for James was three times more catalystic that the affection she experienced for Spike.  
  
"You think so?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, I think so."  
  
She smiled, "I love you so much."  
  
"I love you too," he assured her, kissing her lips.  
  
She moved her head away, "Are you sure?"  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
"Then tell me something no one else knows except for you."  
  
He thought for a moment, "I loved you from the first moment that I say you, walking through that restaurant."  
  
She stared at him.  
  
"It's your turn," he said.  
  
"Well," she smiled, moving her eyes through the room innocently, "What is I were to tell you that Faye Valentine isn't my real name?"  
  
"I'd be largely relieved," he joked.  
  
She smiled, "What if I were to tell you that I was eighty years old?"  
  
"I'd say you look damn good for your age."  
  
Her face saddened, "When I was nineteen, I got into a shuttle accident. I was cryogenically frozen until the technology arose to bring me to life."  
  
He listened intently to her every word.  
  
"That was sixty-one years ago."  
  
"So what is your real name? "The creature"?"  
  
"I don't know my real name," She shook her head, "A patient at the lab, he named me Faye Valentine, like the song."  
  
He smiled, "beautiful song."  
  
"Yes," she smiled, "I never really liked that name."  
  
"Well," he whispered into his ear, his breath running a chill down her spine, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  
  
Faye loved the feel of him against her. She loved everything about him, every movement, every word. Every fiber of his being was of major importance to her.  
  
"Rose," she whispered, "I like that, Rose."  
  
"Then that is what you'll be from now on," He caressed her, "So frail, so beautiful."  
  
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She was back in the motel lobby. She picked up her head and realized that she was dreaming. An urge overcame her. She looked at the clock above the check-in desk. It was nearly midnight. Slowly, she made her way back to her room.  
  
Inside, the moonlight lit the darkness over their beds. Spike was already lying in his, breathing rhythmically, pretending to be asleep. She knew he wasn't, she could feel that he was awake, listening to her every move.  
  
She sat down on her own bed, looking down for a moment, and then looking back up at his face, darkened by the night, yet exposed by the moonlight. He looked so peaceful before her eyes, almost as if he was not the treacherous man that he had shown himself to be. Trust, she thought to herself, trust.  
  
"My name," she said solemnly, sensing movement on his face, "isn't made up. Rose is what a man named James Shields once called me---my husband---who had sadly passed away two days after our honeymoon." 


	7. Chapter Seven

Thank you all so much for the reviews, I really appreciate them. Reviews are what inspires me to write on, and I usually take much longer to update if I don't get any constructive criticism. So please, love me, hate me, it's all right just as long as you review me.  
  
Chapter 7  
  
Now, we move from the tortured lives of Spike and Faye, to a different part of the Universe, where yet another part of the puzzle is slowly being fitted into place.  
  
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. . Johnny Builder was lucky. With his hip hairstyle and his rebellious attire he was every girl's dream. When he walked by, every female in the ten-mile radius could not help but swoon. That rugged handsomeness rubbed off on everyone who was ever in close proximity of the great one. In truth, teenage girls wanted him and teenage boys wanted to be him. But the seventeen-year-old hunk was interested in none of the latter. He didn't want pretty blue eye shadow or pink, tinted lips. He wasn't interested in tight mini-skirts or large, firm, developing teenage breasts. He wasn't interested in anything they had to offer. Long ago his heart had gone out to the last person anyone could have imagined. From the first moment that he saw her he knew it was love at first sight. The dream girl's hair was as bright as fire and her smile was to die for. She was vivid and alive, and every glance from her glistening eyes was magnetic. She was quiet around people, she played dumb. Most girls disliked her and most boys didn't know her name. Johnny did know. Her name was Francoise, but she never responded to it.  
  
He would watch her every day from his beaten ship as she slowly walked home. She did not seem to belong even in her skin, and the long skirt of the uniform did not do justice to slender, olive legs dying to peak out. Her natural blush was always intact, and though she seldom wore make up, her face was becoming in the womanliest of ways. The pretty little redhead, Johnny decided, was indeed the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.  
  
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She kept herself afloat when she wanted to cry. She was unsuccessful. She cried a lot these past two years, from the very moment that she first descended into the sunrise. Of all her past misadventures leading to trouble, this was the first time in her life that she had ever realized it. She went away to search for her family. She ended up losing everything.  
  
Even their names became misty in her imagination. It was strange because at one time she vowed never to forget them. But she was a thirteen-year-old girl then, she didn't know how easily one could let go of everything. She still recalled, of course, the tall and daring man in the suit, the kind and aging ex-cop with his metal arm, and of course the exquisitely beautiful woman who knew how to handle a gun. She remembered the bounties and the adventure, she recalled the danger and hidden bond. It was all there, like a taunting, distressing pain. All of that seemed so distant now, so out of the ordinary. Once, she had lived on a garbage lot, and it was all so much better than what she faced now.  
  
She lived in the distinguished suburbs of a large Mars metropolis. Her adopted family was stern and deeply religious. They made her go to school, and confined her to her room during the rest of her time. Her home did not have a computer, nor did she have hope of ever attaining one. Besides that, she was under constant surveillance. Surveillance that did not include her new parents.  
  
It all, her entire existence, traced back to the night her dog died. She had woken up to the sound of footsteps outside of her door. She did not worry at first. Plenty had come and gone through the saloon that she at the moment facilitated. She knew she was closing in on her mark, on her father. She had traced his exploits via Internet for months. Maybe some weeks, maybe some days. She did not know how long it would take, but she was prepared to handle it all.  
  
The footsteps increased and Ein moved inside of her arms. She looked around frantically. She did not know what to do. If Ein had sensed something, she knew it was dangerous. She was even more assured when the sound stopped for a moment before bursting through her door. Before her stood three men with guns. She did not move. She sat staring stoically at them.  
  
"Why are you doing this to Ed?" she asked in her childish tone.  
  
A dark figure pushed through the men. He stared at her, his eyes making her heart jump.  
  
"You're just a little girl."  
  
She stared at him, transfixed by his gaze.  
  
"Where is your father?" He asked her calmly, his deep voice chilling her to the very bone. She remained stiff.  
  
"Where is he?" the dark figure repeated.  
  
She did not reply.  
  
"Where the fuck is he?" He exploded, causing her to fall back.  
  
"My father---" She shook, "why do you need my father?"  
  
"Because your father is supposed to help us with something of a predicament. It's like a treasure hunt, you know? And your father is supposed to help us find the map."  
  
Her father was a mapmaker. Ed knew that. But these men seemed dangerous.  
  
"I don't know where my father is," Ed shook her head.  
  
"You don't know where your father is?" The man asked, a terrible unrest in his voice, disguised by solemnity.  
  
"No," was all she could muster.  
  
"Are you sure?" his fist was twitching. He approached her bed. She shook beneath her covers.  
  
"Yes," she whispered.  
  
"Don't fucking lie to me!" He screamed, his hand flying in the air as he slapped her violently across the face. She fell back, tears streaming from her eyes.  
  
"She's just a kid," one of the men said, and as soon as the figure turned, the poor chap realized his fate. Thoughtlessly, the dark figure shot at the man, and traces of blood spread throughout the room. She screamed, leaning back on the bed and whimpering.  
  
The last words of the man were unintelligible to Ed. But the dark figure knew exactly what he had said.  
  
"You're just like him---" the man's dying words rang, "You're just like Vicious."  
  
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"You don't want the same thing to happen to you, now do you?" The drawn murderer yelled, looking down at Ed moment's after his killing, "Now tell me, you little bitch, where is your father, where is Radical Ed?"  
  
Her eyes widened and she stared up at him, "Radical Ed?" she whimpered.  
  
"Are you deaf?" he forced.  
  
She shook her head frantically, he placed the gun to it, "Where is he?"  
  
"You don't understand," she cried softly, "I'm Radical Ed."  
  
The gun cocked and the man began to laugh hysterically, "He taught his own daughter to lie this way. Even I couldn't do that."  
  
She closed her eyes, "Ed's not lying."  
  
"Come on, little girl, are you really going to take a bullet for your daddy?"  
  
"Ed is Ed," she whispered, "please, Ed will help you with whatever you need. Just don't hurt Ed."  
  
"Why shouldn't I? You're not telling the truth."  
  
"You want Ed to hack a computer for you? Ed will, just don't hurt Ed---"  
  
"Little girls hacking computers? Did your father teach you that?"  
  
"Ed taught herself," she whimpered, "Let Ed prove it. Ed will do everything, please---"  
  
Some minutes later she was being dragged out, tied up by rope. She struggled for a while when she heard Ein barking far behind her. Then she heard a single shot, and the sounds subsided.  
  
"Fucking dog," one of the men said. At that moment, she knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.  
  
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The work was impossible, even for Ed. The database was impermeable. Every possible move was blocked. It did not help her when she stared at the blank monitor that a gun was pointing at her back and the mysterious figure lurked throughout the room.  
  
"What's going on?" He asked her forcefully.  
  
"It's blocked, the security is superb. Even Ed can't do this."  
  
"What do you mean?" He screamed.  
  
"There are simply too many dark alleys to cross. It's locked. Something important must be behind the wall."  
  
"Yes," he nodded, "Something very important."  
  
"Ed needs a password, Ed can't get in without a password."  
  
"Password?" the figure asked irritably, "I thought hackers didn't need passwords!"  
  
"The program was made especially against hackers. Someone knew the lengths others were willing to go to find what is on this program. Edward cannot decipher these codes, they are custom made, and only a password, one phrase, all it takes is one phrase, can unlock everything hidden here."  
  
The man turned with irritation to his main man.  
  
"Is it true what she's saying?"  
  
"I don't know, sir," the man reported, "But according to Maxim she's gotten much farther than any of the top minds working for us. Her work is flawless, her signature is unique. If she is not Radical Edward, then she must have at least the same, if not greater, capacity than him."  
  
The dark figure nodded, "And the password?"  
  
"If she says it's impossible, it is most likely impossible."  
  
"But who would know the password?" he demanded, "Who would know the password?"  
  
Ed looked to her side to see a handsome boy walk in the room. He was in his late teens, with light hair and blue eyes. He seemed subservient to her, probably captured in the same brutal way as she was.  
  
"Maxim," the dark figure turned to the youth, "What password is she talking about?"  
  
"The password to the database," he said evenly, "The old order changed many things, but they left one the same. The unspoken password. Only the elders knew it. When the elders were assassinated, it seemed that no other possibility could have existed in opening the database. But then, through careful research, I came onto someone who may have known. He ran the division of the site, he alone knew how to find it. Red Dragons put a lot of faith in this one. After the revolt, he disappeared. There was a bounty on his head for a while. The guy, James Shields, turned up some months later, dead. His wife, she saw the whole thing."  
  
"His wife?"  
  
"Yes, I looked her up. Couldn't find her true identity for a while. She changed her name after her Marriage, called herself Rose Shields. After asking around, I traced back to Callisto. Apparently, she was last seen there, causing a lot of trouble. It appears she's been making a living bounty hunting. Ironically, she traveled on the same ship as the legendary Spike Spiegel."  
  
Ed looked up, her ears flexing to adjust the sound of that name. Spike Spiegel, distant memory of the man whom she had once so deeply admired overcame her. A sudden regret, as well. She wished things went back to the way that they once were. But that couldn't happen. After all, she was all but lost in the asperity of reality. If only her captors knew that she, herself, traveled on the ship. But they couldn't have. She had not left physical evidence then. She had no dreams of anyone finding her. She admitted to herself that she was silly for being so reckless as to leave traces as she went along. She simply never suspected that bad people, instead of good, would follow her trail.  
  
"So anyway, the girl was Faye Valentine. I tried looking for her, sent some of my people to talk to her old shipmate. He said she left soon after Spiegel. Spiegel, himself, died, taking Vicious with him. We spoke to the old man about that too. All he could say was one word, 'Julia.'"  
  
Ed looked up, tears streaming to her cheeks. But she did not make a sound.  
  
"I know that story. Spare me, please. I saw his death with my own eyes." He had, indeed, been one of the few that watched Spike's descent down the fateful staircase. He had heard his final word. Bang.  
  
Maxim nodded, "Anyway, what the old man said made some sense. It was around that time, maybe a little later, that Shields was first traced to his mysterious companion. I spoke to many witnesses, they all described the same woman. A real babe, sad, but beautiful."  
  
The conqueror sat, still listening to the discourse.  
  
"I don't know what happened to them during that year," Maxim continued, "but when I found them again, they were already married. It was too late to reach them, though. Shields was already dead, and the woman disappeared."  
  
"You think he might have told her? The password?"  
  
"I've almost no doubt about it. I didn't know him personally, but from what I've heard, he'd never let a secret like that die. He was the sort of man who preserved tradition, and whom better to have it live on in than the woman he loved?"  
  
"So we look for her? This Faye Valentine?" the dark figure asked.  
  
"Yes," Maxim nodded, "This may be our only option."  
  
He approached Ed, looking down at her. She looked up into his blue eyes and for a moment felt a tingly sensation of safety. She was almost fifteen, and for the first time in her life, she began to feel herself maturing. Ed liked this boy, who looked so serious as he studied her. His gaze was far more sympathetic, and she wondered what such a beautiful creature was doing working for the Red Dragons (she knew now, without a doubt, that Spike's old syndicate was involved in this.)  
  
"What do you suppose we do with her?" Maxim asked, his gaze not leaving hers.  
  
"We kill her," the conqueror replied swiftly.  
  
Fear reappeared on Edward's face and Maxim sensed it.  
  
"Kill her?" Maxim asked, "Kill Radical Edward? With all do respect, sir, I do not think Master Carigula would approve."  
  
That name must have meant a lot to the dark interrogator, for he lessened his composure, "And what do you propose we do with her?"  
  
"Hide her, keep her hidden from any outside intrusions."  
  
"What?" he exclaimed irritably, "Keep her in a dungeon?"  
  
"No," Maxim shook his head, "if we do that, we'll soon have many problems on our hands. I suggest that we blend her in, adopt her into a civilian home, send her to school. She knows enough about hacking and technology, but the girl had never gotten real education. I suggest that the Red Dragons provide this privilege to her, I am sure she would make a useful employee in her not-so-distant future."  
  
Edward widened her eyes as she looked at him.  
  
"You want that," he smiled, "Don't you? You want to become a part of the great Syndicate."  
  
She knew that had she said no, death was certain. So she could do nothing more than nod her head.  
  
"Yes," she whispered, "I would absolutely love that."  
  
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Edward was sixteen now, and she was growing up fast. Every Saturday she was being called to the town Headquarters for her training. Her adopted parents knew not to question that call. They had gotten good money to obey every command of the faceless men who always watched them.  
  
Ed was becoming a larger part of the Syndicate day by day. Or perhaps, the syndicate was becoming her. Ordinarily, a child of her age would not get the same treatment. She would not be taken seriously or trained by the greatest masters of all. She would not be so well considered or revered. But Radical Ed had plenty of potential, and the Syndicate recognized it.  
  
While she hated who they were, while she despised the very existence of their corporation, Edward could not help but admit that a part of the Syndicate she treasured. She was experiencing the roots of one of her greatest mentors, and she was in love with one of its best men. She could already distinguish the many similarities between him and his predecessor, between Maxim and Spike Spiegel.  
  
She knew that she had fallen in love with Maxim at first sight. His worldliness, his belief in her, it all propelled her to excel. She loved that he respected her, that he glorified her. She loved that he took her seriously, she loved that he had once rescued her. It made her love him even more when she first realized that he did not love her.  
  
He had taken advantage of her love. Some months before, while alone with him inside of his office, she could not help but use the moment of their togetherness. Somewhere between chewing bubble gum that he had offered her and crossing her legs in a musky female way, she declared her emotions to him and even dared to peck him on the lips. Whatever surprise he could have felt at first immediately subsided as he took her forcefully by the chin and pushed his tongue down her throat. She melted inside of his arms, she shivered at her own inconsistency. He proceeded to move his hands down her blouse and fingering her small breasts. Ed was unused to this attention, it made her feel uncomfortable, but she let him persist with it. She loved that he wanted her. No one had ever really wanted her that way before.  
  
Maxim took her home that evening and after feeding her chocolate ice cream he lured her into bed. His hard nakedness felt strange against her, and she twisted and turned, trying to understand what he was doing to her. The experience was both, painful and interesting to her. She could not distinguish anything except him, inside of her. She did not lay flat on the bed, she moved, she tried not to faint from the shock. All the while, he whispered rad things into her ear, things that made her blush.  
  
When it was all over, when he got off of her and walked to the window, she lay back down on the pillow and traced his nude outline with her eyes.  
  
"No one needs to know about this, Ed," Maxim said after a while.  
  
"I wasn't going to tell anyone," she smiled, smelling his hair on the pillow.  
  
"Good," he said, "good."  
  
"Is this going to change things?" She asked.  
  
"It won't," he shook his head, "This was a one time thing. Ed, do you understand what that means?"  
  
She sat up, "One time thing?"  
  
"One time thing," he repeated.  
  
"Maxim, you are the first man I had ever been with," she struggled.  
  
He turned, his eyes were foreign. He was no longer comforting. He had become something else entirely. "Forget about that then," he flatly declared, "It will never happen again."  
  
"But it's already happened!" She screamed, tears gathering at her eyes, "Maxim, we can be together forever, we can! Maxim I love you so much!"  
  
He turned away.  
  
"Maxim!"  
  
"Why don't you understand?" He screamed, "You are just a child, you have no comprehension of these things."  
  
"You're only four years older than me, Maxim! What do you know that I don't?"  
  
"Have you ever heard of Spike Spiegel?" he screamed.  
  
She stared at him; no matter what, she knew she couldn't tell the truth.  
  
"No," she whispered.  
  
"Spike Spiegel is the example they always use when they warn us," Maxim began the discourse in his usual, beautiful, informative tone, "He was a great man, he was our mentor, though few admit it. Well, this Spike Spiegel, this promising fighter, this extraordinary man, he fell in love with some girl. No one really took it seriously, you know? Well, it turned out that the girl was the lover of another man, this one was named Vicious. In the end, the girl ended up dying, and the two killed one another over it. You want the moral of this story?"  
  
Ed shook her head. Quietly she began to dress, taking care not to move too frantically. In time, she was out the door, merging with the gray, rainy world outside of Maxim's dark apartment.  
  
He watched her leave, the young and frail little girl, the only person he had ever known to be truly alive. She was like a light, slowly extinguishing.  
  
"I've wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you," he said to the emptiness. He could not think of anything else to add.  
  
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Presently, Edward was walking home from school, holding her books near to her heart. Her mind was not at ease. For months since her encounter with Maxim she felt devoid of all emotion, drained, crushed, destroyed. More than ever she missed the old times, the times that were now long gone. Something was missing in her life, and she didn't understand what it was.  
  
She could feel someone watching her, and it was no surprise when Johnny Builder's ship pulled up to her.  
  
"Hey there," he said to her.  
  
"Hey," She looked up at him.  
  
"You're from my school, 'aint ya?" he asked playfully.  
  
"I am," she smiled.  
  
"You need a ride home?" he asked her.  
  
She looked at the handsome boy's face. He was such a good boy. She always wished she could fall in love with a good boy.  
  
"Is your ship fueled?" she asked him with adventure written on her face.  
  
Ed suddenly understood what she was lacking all this time. She was lacking her past. She no longer wanted to be part of the syndicate. A sudden thought came into her mind: somewhere out there, Faye Valentine was still alive. And so was Jet. She wanted to find them, to reunite with them. Only then would her unhappiness cease.  
  
"I would like you to give me a ride," She smiled, "But I'm not sure you're up for it."  
  
"Home?" He questioned in confusion.  
  
"No," she shook her head.  
  
"Where, then?" he questioned.  
  
She grinned, "Nowhere in particular---Earth, maybe? Venus?"  
  
He stared at her.  
  
"So, what do you say?"  
  
"I'm not sure," he shook his head. She began to walk away. He could not see her go. He was too infatuated with this beautiful stranger.  
  
"Wait!" he screamed after her.  
  
She turned.  
  
"Get in," he smiled.  
  
She quickly did as was told, strapping herself with the seatbelt. The ship soared as it began to fly to the beautiful "no-place-in-particular."  
  
"So, what's your name, anyway?" Ed asked him as she stared at the ground diminishing behind them.  
  
"Johnny," he said shyly, "I know your name is Francoise."  
  
"Call me Ed," she corrected.  
  
"Ed? I never knew that was a girl's name."  
  
"Trust me Johnny," She smiled, "There's lots of things you don't know." 


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter 8  
  
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Have you ever heard of Spike Spiegel?  
  
Spike Spiegel is the example they always use when they warn us. He was a great man; he was our mentor, though few admit it. Well, this Spike Spiegel, this promising fighter, this extraordinary man, he fell in love with some girl. No one really took it seriously, you know? Well, it turned out that the girl was the lover of another man, this one was named Vicious. In the end, the girl ended up dying, and the two killed one another over it.  
  
You want the moral of this story?  
  
~~~  
  
"Never fall in love," she smiled, shining radiantly out of her orb.  
  
"Why not?" he brought his face in close proximity to hers.  
  
She raised herself out of bed and stretched the slender silhouette of her body merging with the shadows on the wall, a thick succession of golden locks overflowing her shoulders and lower back.  
  
"Because," she turned her face with a wicked grin, "All women are liars. Don't you know that?"  
  
"You're a liar too, Julia?" He smiled, laying back. She walked to the window and undrew the shade. Blinding light filled the room and gently caressed her nude body. She stared out the window.  
  
"I'm the worst of them all," she said in a voice he recognized as being neither comedic nor serious.  
  
"Worst of them all, huh?"  
  
"Yes," she turned and faced him with an angelic smile. Her clear blue eyes penetrated him. "I'm a heartbreaker."  
  
"Pity that someone so beautiful could be so treacherous," his magnetic gaze did not leave her.  
  
"I know," she smiled, "That's why I'm giving you a heads up."  
  
"Too bad," he stood up and walked to her, putting his hands around her waist. Their naked bodies merged and for a moment became one. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest, her soft hair tickling his skin. A quiet pant escaped his lips. His fingers dug deeper into her flesh as she pushed herself closer to him. In a matter-of-fact way, she fitted perfectly inside of his arms, as if it was meant to be, as if the Great Spirit designed it that way.  
  
"Too bad?" she moaned.  
  
"Too late," he whispered into her ear, his hot breath quickly running down her spine, "Because I'm already in love with you."  
  
She closed her eyes and did not move for a moment, she enjoyed his strength around her.  
  
"Oh Spike," she whispered, "Love is so horrible."  
  
"Horrible?" he smiled.  
  
"Yes," she nodded, "Something so simple, so easy. So forbidden."  
  
He caressed her earlobe, "It doesn't have to be forbidden."  
  
"But it is," she said, "It's so forbidden that it almost feels wrong." She paused and reflected, "I love that word, 'almost.' It's the in-between phase. It's almost wrong, and it is almost right. And I love that we never have to define us."  
  
"I love you, Julia," her whispered, "That's the only thing I know to be real. Everything else is just a dream, just a dream that I never wake up from."  
  
"A dream," she whispered, feeling the world roll on her tongue, "a dream."  
  
"Yes," he urged her, "a dream."  
  
"It is more a nightmare than a dream, and I desperately want to wake up and understand reality. But the truth is, I'm probably not asleep. This---this is probably real. I wish I really was dreaming."  
  
"You are, Julia," he whispered, "And wherever your physical form resides, remember that it is in my arms."  
  
She pushed out of his grasp and leaned her palm against the wall, bowing her head. He stood motionless.  
  
"I sometimes wish," she whispered, "that I was still a little girl, cozy in my bed, unaware of the world around me. I wonder if this is all it is, if, really, this existence is only a parallel to what truly is reality. People say that what is real is gruesome. But why does it have to be that way? When I watch a sunset, it is as real as it could possibly get, and it just so beautiful."  
  
He leaned his head in and saw tears flowing out of her eyes.  
  
"Do you love me, Julia?" he asked her softly, not knowing what propelled these words to his lips.  
  
She closed her eyes, "Vicious."  
  
Spike turned away with anger. "Vicious, that very name is like a curse."  
  
"But it will haunt us until the day that we awake," she said resolutely, "and while it is so, what does it matter if I love you or not?"  
  
"Then there is a possibility that you may not love me?" he asked bitterly.  
  
She turned and faced him, her face stolid.  
  
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Spike Awoke before hearing her answer. He was sweat drenched and out of fuel. In the seat next to him, Faye was sound asleep. She looked so peaceful when she slept, Spike thought. He'd never noticed just how beautiful she was.  
  
Why had he left it all behind that rainy afternoon? Why had he let his past get the best of him? Something that once he'd loved so much he suddenly despised. He despised Vicious, he despised the Syndicate, but most of all he despised her. Julia, that hidden force that drove him to insanity. She confused him, repelled him, even after her own death. Why was he so in love with her? He couldn't understand it. It seemed so clear to him before but now, the old riddles were beginning to sink in. He didn't know why he once loved her, yet simultaneously he didn't know why he now hated her.  
  
She didn't do anything wrong. The burning shame of their so-called infidelity was of both of their devices. Julia betrayed Vicious as a lover; Spike betrayed Vicious as a friend. And then there was that day at the graveyard, when he waited for her impatiently, dreaming to run away from the dreary clutches of reality. Maybe that was why he hated her. Then again, she chose to flee to save both their lives. And then he had a thought.  
  
Julia could have ended it all on that day.  
  
But she didn't; she chose life over death. Or perhaps it was dreaming over awaking. All of their vows, all of their wishes, she shattered all that on that fateful afternoon. When she didn't show up six years earlier, his love for her had died. Only a taunting ghost remained, a taunting ghost and a hidden urge. Maybe that was why he did not embrace her when they finally did meet in that same fateful graveyard three years after their initial separation. Maybe it was because he didn't want to hold her, maybe it was because he no longer cared.  
  
Then why was she still there?  
  
Why did she continue to ring inside of his mind? Why did her eyes penetrate him from deep within? Why did he inwardly cry when she had fallen, holding her dear and feeling life drain out of him with every one of her last breaths? Why did he die when she did? Why did he choose to die? Why did he walk away from Jet, from Faye, from the Bebop, from a twisted and promising form of unconditional happiness to pursue a star that was already extinguished? If he didn't love her, why did he still care?  
  
Julia was no longer existent in his life. The thought of her was like poison to him. He should have died that day on that staircase, he wanted to die. It was supposed to be that way. Yet, by some cruel chance, someone out there thought that it was too tragic for a character like Spike (in this magical world of fools' dreams) to fall in his final battle. Someone kept him alive in hopes that there was still something left of the man, something deep within. But he was no longer Spike, for he had lost the only thing that had ever seemed real. He tried to forget her, and yet the world seemed to scream her name.  
  
Only one thing he wanted to remember.  
  
"Then there is a possibility that you may not love me?"  
  
Her answer to this was the single fragment he couldn't bring himself to recall.  
  
~~  
  
Faye opened her eyes to find Spike awoken. With an empty gaze he stared into the stars. His face was devoid of all emotion, and for a moment, he did not seem to be alive. She overlooked his frame in confusion and then touched his shoulder. With a shrug he drifted from his meditation and turned to her.  
  
"What now?" he exclaimed irritably.  
  
"Where are we?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.  
  
"We're stuck," he declared, "out of fuel."  
  
"Not again," she leaned back in annoyance, "What are we supposed to do now?"  
  
"Wait until some kind person helps us out."  
  
She sighed, stretching out in the seat after a night of uncomfortable slumber, "This is the real world, Spike, there's no such things as kind people."  
  
"Aren't you optimistic today!"  
  
"We're stuck in outer space with no fuel and nothing to eat! This must be the happiest day of my life!"  
  
He sighed, vacating his seat and walking to the back of the ship.  
  
"Where are you going?" She exclaimed.  
  
"As far away from you as possible, I'm afraid your negative energy just might rub off on me."  
  
Faye gritted her teeth with anger, "Well if you're going to be like that, then fine!"  
  
"I'm great you're content with that."  
  
She stood up, her knuckles in fists, "You know, it would help if we could get along since we're stuck working together."  
  
"We're stuck?" He asked cynically, "I don't know about you, but I'm not stuck to anything, I'm not bound by anything. I can leave you whenever I want."  
  
"Really?" She screamed, "Then why not now?"  
  
"Because we're stuck in the middle of nowhere."  
  
"Five seconds ago you said we weren't stuck!"  
  
He sighed angrily, "What is the matter with you?"  
  
"What is the matter with you?" she retorted, "You're not like other people. If any other guy survived as miraculously as you did, if any ordinary Joe got reunited with an old comrade, they would not act as cocky and ungrateful as you. You know what's wrong with you? It's that you never know what you have until you lose it.  
  
He didn't respond. Faye understood where to strike and at this moment she desperately wanted to hurt him.  
  
"That's why that woman is dead now," she screamed, "Isn't it? Because you didn't use the moment that you had to run away with her. You were a cocky macho man who wanted to get revenge on someone not worthy of that sort of attention! Isn't that right? Isn't it?"  
  
"Shut up!" He screamed from the top of his lungs. She didn't.  
  
"You wanted to kill Vicious to prove things to yourself. In the end, you really did succeed in proving something. That you are a vindictive, stupid son of a bitch. Well, Spike, you didn't just kill Vicious, through your actions you killed your silly little girlfriend too. What was her name again? Julia?"  
  
"No!" he lost his grip, "No don't you ever repeat her name ever again. Don't you dare, you're not worthy of that name."  
  
"She's not worthy of me repeating her name!" Faye screamed knowing that it was not true.  
  
"Julia is dead, she's gone from my life, she's in the past. I've learned my lesson Faye, and you aren't the right person to teach that anyway."  
  
She stared at him, "Julia is dead, she's gone from your life, she's in the past? I've heard all those words before.  
  
"Not like this. This time it really is over. It's over with her. And as soon as we land at the nearest gas station, it will be over with you too."  
  
He turned away from her.  
  
"Over with me?" she asked, disbelieving. She had learned to feel safety with Spike, and being on her own again was a frightening thing.  
  
"Yes," he said, "The past stays in the past. That's the way things are."  
  
"But Spike," she whispered.  
  
"What, Faye?"  
  
And then she said something she never thought she'd say; "I need you."  
  
He turned around to look at her. What was in that secret gaze of hers?  
  
"You need me, huh?"  
  
"Yes," she nodded, "I need you. I need you to help me."  
  
"Help you?"  
  
"Those men in the bar that night, on Callisto? You remember? They're after me. I don't know why but I don't think I'd stay alive for very long if they catch up."  
  
"Faye Valentine is on the run again, huh?"  
  
"Not Faye Valentine," she shook her head, "Rose Shields."  
  
"Oh yes, I forgot, Rose Shields."  
  
"When my husband died," she whispered, "he told me that I was in grave danger. He told me to hide. He told me that if something ever happened to him, that I should contact someone who goes by the name Yan. He told me that only then would I be safe."  
  
Spike stared at her, wide-eyed, not believing his ears, "Yan? Did you say Yan?"  
  
"I've been looking for him ever since. But it's so hard to look when you don't know what you're looking for."  
  
He did not respond.  
  
"Spike?"  
  
"Did your husband give you anything?" he spoke in a hurried pace, "Did he maybe say anything?"  
  
"No, nothing!" she declared in confusion, "he just touched my hand and said he loved me."  
  
"Touched your hand? Where? Show me?" He grabbed Faye and studied her long arm.  
  
"M-my wrist, here---what's this about?"  
  
Roughly holding her by the hand, Spike led Faye to the portable metal detector.  
  
"Hey! That's radiation!" she exclaimed. He did not speak. Slowly he moved her wrist around the screen before catching a glimpse of something. He kneeled in to study it, and his eyebrows raised.  
  
"What, Spike? What are you looking at?"  
  
He mumbled something under his breath.  
  
"What?" she exclaimed, trying to comprehend his words.  
  
"There's something---I said there's something underneath your skin."  
  
"What?" she screamed, "Get it out!"  
  
Frantically she began fingering her arm, "Where is it?"  
  
"You won't feel it," Spike said calmly, "It's practically microscopic."  
  
"Oh God!" she cried, "Oh God! Tell me it's just a splinter!"  
  
"It's a metal splinter," he said, "Or something slightly more important."  
  
"Well, how can I remove it then?"  
  
"You can't, not without someone who's got the skills."  
  
"Well, who's got the skills?"  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
They were on Mars, guests in one of the usual town homes you would see just as you approached the gate. A middle aged, portly man sat with a magnifying glass, staring at Faye's wrist. Meanwhile, Spike gazed out the window, completely disinterested in the proceedings. In the neighboring room, a woman sat, reading to her children. Occasionally, the youngest one peered through the small opening in the door and giggled uncontrollably. The man ran his chubby fingers against the surface of Faye's skin, as if he was trying to understand something. All the while, he upheld a conversation.  
  
"You haven't come to see me in a while, Spike," the man said.  
  
"What can I say? I've been keeping myself busy." The man peered out of his spectacles and Faye and smiled.  
  
"Maria, she's pregnant again."  
  
"I noticed," Spike smiled, "and little Tara, she's all grown up."  
  
"She's more of a pestering now than she was before."  
  
"It must be hard when bruises turn into boys."  
  
"Tell me about it," the man replied, "Now about this beauty here, she's got something in there, all right."  
  
"Any ideas how it could have got there?"  
  
"Probably protoplasm," he observed, "You bury something that small into a pinch, attach it to skin, and it will dissolve instantly. Won't leave a scar, won't even feel it."  
  
"Protoplasm? I haven't ever even heard of it!" Faye exclaimed.  
  
"Hospital workers use it all the time when they perform surgery. Police too, when they plant bugs on people. Imagine having a microscopic chip injected in you without so much as your suspicion. It is virtually impossible to detect with the unaided eye."  
  
"So they use these things to track people?" She asked.  
  
"Tracking is one of them. They also use it to quickly seal off wounds. Or, of course, there's one more possibility."  
  
"It's a great hiding place for secret information," Spike cut in.  
  
Faye looked up, "Secret Information?"  
  
"We'll talk about it later, Faye," Spike said, turning back to the portly man, "Is there any way of removing it, Fad?"  
  
"I have lasers," he smiled, "but none are precise enough. That little piece of metal in her arm is a custom job. You need some mad equipment to pry that little baby out."  
  
"Who would think might have that equipment?"  
  
"From the top of my head? INFO TECH---RoboWorld---YAN--- Decker, Inc---"  
  
Faye sprang up, "Did you say YAN?"  
  
"Yeah, one of the leading technological providers in the galaxy. Why? Does it ring a bell?"  
  
She stared at Spike; he stared back, knowing what she was thinking.  
  
"Something like that," Spike said, not leaving her eyes.  
  
"Sorry I couldn't be much help" Fad said.  
  
"It's okay, Fad," Spike replied, "Whatever's in her arm is better off staying in her arm for now. We gotta go now, okay? Tell Maria I said 'good luck with the baby.'"  
  
"Oh come on!" the portly gentleman protested, "At least stay for tea!"  
  
"We'd love to but we can't, sorry," Spike apologized, "We've got a lot to do."  
  
"You always do," Fad smiled, "Ever since you were a little boy, running around, making trouble."  
  
Spike grinned, "Some might say I'm still that little boy."  
  
The two stared at one another for a moment, memories of the good old times dancing in their minds.  
  
"Now, Fad, sorry, but I gotta say it. Whatever was said he today should stay here, okay?"  
  
"Like you really have to ask," Fad smiled. 


	9. Chapter Nine

Thank you very much to everyone that reviewed.  
  
Chapter 9  
  
They were stuck in the deep recesses of space. Ed leaned her head against her arm and stared about, trying to find some logical conclusion. Meanwhile, next to her, Johnny Builder counted the hours, the minutes, the seconds. He still was uncertain why he had acted so rash, why he had let this beautiful young girl pull him into the action of this stupidity. What was he doing? He was trapped in the middle of nowhere, the fuel tank empty, and his father's prize star cruiser far from the garage where it belonged. He had never imagined being here, seeing these things from such a close perspective. He didn't even know how to drive in the gravity-defiant world. He suddenly felt like a little boy who wanted his mother to solve the problem.  
  
He could not overlook, however, that on some level his dreams were coming true. He had always fantasized about having beautiful Francoise on his fingertip. He imagined that she, herself, had had a lapse of sanity. He was going to be a man about it, get them safely home, and then experience the privileges rendered to any dashing prince by the damsel in distress.  
  
Johnny Builder knew nothing about Ed. He couldn't even imagine how her mind worked, and who was still shining inside of her heart. A part of Ed hated him, but another part still longed for his affection. The affection of the first man whom she had ever loved, the attention of the first man who had broken her heart. She knew she had to forget about him, however. Life was stretching ahead quickly, and she had to find what she was looking for. She had to find Faye; she had to find Jet. Inside, she was longing for her past, for her beautiful, imminent past. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, the memory of her father still existed. Yet Ed did not know what to do with it. Seeking him seemed futile, all of a sudden. It was during this very search that she first got herself into this trouble.  
  
"We're stranded," Johnny Builder declared.  
  
She turned to him and smiled, that same, lively smile, "Stranded? Of course not."  
  
"No? We're out of gas, I can't drive this thing, and we don't know where we are. Look, Ed, I'm going to call my father, ask him to find me and bring us back home."  
  
She laughed, a bold and ringing laugh, "Are you kidding? We're only just starting out!"  
  
Was she mad? She must have sustained a head injury, he could find no other explanation. She knew the circumstances and yet she did not care. It was as if the uncertainty of the situation didn't bother her one bit.  
  
"Ed, we have no other choice. What do you suppose we do?"  
  
"We wait," she said lightly, "Until someone passes us by and gives us a lift."  
  
He stared at her. "A lift? A lift to where?"  
  
She smiled at the naïve boy, "The gas station, silly!"  
  
"You mean you're actually intending to go on?" He screamed.  
  
She nodded matter-of-factly.  
  
"You're crazy. Where are you going to go?"  
  
"I'll manage," she declared, "Don't worry about me."  
  
"Look, you've got a family back on Mars, you're a sixteen-year-old girl! What are you planning to do? How are you planning to 'manage'?"  
  
She studied his handsome face, his dark hair and innocent blue eyes. Maybe he was a God in his own world, in the protective world called Suburban Mars. Maybe somewhere out there, someone would consider this boy dangerous, exciting. Yet, to Ed, he seemed like nothing more than an adorable nuisance. He was the sort she would have loved to spend the rest of her life with, had she been able to love him. But she was never going to love him. She was never going to feel anything than sweet contempt. She thought to herself something that made her shudder. Maybe this pretty little boy was the same thing to her that she was to Maxim.  
  
"Listen, Johnny Builder," she sighed, "I'm going to give you some options, all right? You're not going to call your dad right now. We'll hitch a ride to the nearest floating convenience center, and, once there, you'll either call your father and have him come get you, you alone, or stay with me and see where life takes us."  
  
"You've got to be kidding me," he shook his head, "You can't possibly be thinking about running away! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out there?"  
  
"Johnny, like I said, you don't need to worry about me."  
  
"Just tell me something," he pleaded, "Why do you want to run away? I mean, what? Are you bored with your life or something?"  
  
She looked out at the stars, "Something like that."  
  
"Well," he began to lecture, "This is a big world we live in with some bad people in it."  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
"Well, if you know all that, why are you still being like that? Don't you understand that a teenage girl who's never seen the stars has no business running around like that?"  
  
She shook her head, "You really don't know anything about me, Johnny. And, by the way, drop the holier-than-thou act; it makes you sound old."  
  
"I'm only trying to prepare you---"  
  
"I should be preparing you, Johnny. Like I said, there's things about me you don't know."  
  
"You're right," he nodded, "I don't know a lot about you. But the little that I do know makes me say these things to you."  
  
Ed smiled, "What do you know about me, Johnny Builder?"  
  
He sighed, this was going to be the moment when he would reveal everything.  
  
"I know that you're kind," he began, "and you're funny, and you've always got a smile on your face even when the world gets you down. I know you're strong. You must wonder how I know that, Franscoise. I know that because I've been watching you since the first time I've seen you walk into class one day. You know, I've seen many pretty girls, but you just top the cake, you know?"  
  
Ed stared at him, aimlessly wondering what to say. "I top the cake, huh?" she finally managed.  
  
"Yeah, you're so beautiful. You know, that's why I went with you. I would have never acted this dumb if it was with any other girl. And now you tell me you're leaving. Where are you planning to go?"  
  
She sighed. She didn't want to have to tell him, but she realized that she had no choice.  
  
"I'm not as primitive as you think I am," she smiled, leaning her chin on her hand, "I've been 'seeing the stars', as you put it, since I was a little girl."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You ever hear the name Radical Edward?" she continued.  
  
"Yeah the greatest hacker in the gala---" he paused, "Franscoise---Ed?"  
  
"Like I said," she smiled, "I manage."  
  
"But---how?"  
  
"It's not a question of how, it's a question of when. Three years ago, I was riding the galaxy with a group of bounty hunters on a ship called the Bebop. Circumstances came between us. One of them died. I'm looking for the other two."  
  
Johnny Builder didn't believe his ears. The pretty redhead, with her fiery eyes and her full lips, with her innocent expression, did not strike him as being the dangerous kind. She must have been lying, she must have been! Either way, Francoise was crazy. She was just a pretentious little kid playing the games of the big boys. She may have been Radical Edward in her own world, but to the rest of reality, she was nothing more than a silly girl.  
  
"Francoise," He paused, "Listen, baby, you're talking crazy talk now."  
  
She beamed at him, "You're calling me baby now?"  
  
"Now look, let's just go home, forget this thing ever happened. Here---I'll call my dad and---" he reached for the transmitter only to encounter a large gun pointed to his head. He looked up to see Ed's face, still smiling, completely unaffected by anything around her. It took him another moment to realize that Ed was the one holding the gun.  
  
"Wh---what are you doing?" He stammered.  
  
She grinned her friendly grin, "Johnny Builder, you promised you wouldn't call your father."  
  
"Francoise, put that thing down!" He exclaimed.  
  
"I told you before and I'll tell you again," she said cheerfully, "My name is Edward."  
  
"E---Edward---" he paused, "Please, put that gun down."  
  
She smiled and did as she was told, stashing it into her pocket.  
  
"Where did you get that thing?" he fidgeted with his hands nervously.  
  
"Oh, you know, the top cabinet in my kitchen."  
  
He stared at her, "You carry a gun around with you all the time?"  
  
"Pretty much," she nodded.  
  
"And do your parents mind that?"  
  
"They're not my parents," was the first thing she said before adding, "What they don't know won't hurt them."  
  
"They're not your parents?" he stared at her, "Is that why you want to run away? Did you get mad at your stepfather or something?"  
  
She touched his cheek with her hand, running her fingers against his smooth skin, "Oh, Johnny," she smiled, "You're so pretty."  
  
And suddenly, the gas station came into view.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
"The fuel tank is loaded," Johnny said, looking at Ed. She was studying the lights of the massive, drifting Ship turned Rest Area. It was overflowed with various persons. Tourists were scattered throughout, with their strappy sandals and their tan skins. Bounty hunters stopped by for gas and information. Business travelers resided in the many cafés, working out one issue or another. Ed looked back at Johnny, who watched the proceedings around him with fascination.  
  
"Is it better than the mall?" she asked quietly and he didn't hear her. She was glad.  
  
Then he turned her way with a different expression on his face, almost as if he understood what she wanted to escape to.  
  
"Ed," he whispered.  
  
"Yes, Johnny?"  
  
"Would you please go home with me?"  
  
She looked into his sweet eyes with endearment, "Yes," she smiled, "I'll go home with you."  
  
Something in his heart sprung with happiness. Maybe she was not as crazy as he thought. She realized her mistake and was ready to correct it. She would go home and assume her old life. She would become his girlfriend, and he would walk around and flaunt her to all the other guys. The two of them would be perfect together. And some day, they'd get married, have children, and live in a nice house in a nice Mars neighborhood, with a nice dog named Lucky. Yeah, he thought, that would be the life he'd always dreamed of.  
  
"You mean it?" He smiled with excitement, "You'll go home with me?"  
  
"Yep," she nodded happily, "I'll go home."  
  
"Great!" He exclaimed, "well, let me call my dad."  
  
"All right," she smiled, "But if you don't mind, could you please get me something to eat before that. I need some sustenance for the shit storm we're both about to get."  
  
"Oh yeah," he smiled, "You haven't eaten for two days, of course you must be hungry!"  
  
"You can't even imagine!" she smiled.  
  
"I'll be right back!" He exclaimed, still flowing with excitement. He had finally gotten this pretty girl where he wanted her. She was dependent on him, the Alpha male. He was even going to provide his woman with her feed.  
  
Quickly he hopped out of the ship and galloped to the fast food stand not very far away. The line was not very long and when it came time for him to order, he asked for a large Buterbrod, the new and hip term for hamburger, and some Voda. He turned to walk back in excitement, his hands filled with a bag of food. It took him time to register that his ship was taking off, and even longer to note that Ed was in the drivers seat. He ran towards her only to be pushed back by the pressure of the soaring ship. He bumped into various tourists, aimlessly trying to pry his way back. But it was to no avail.  
  
"Bye-bye" she mouthed with her lips.  
  
Her smiling face was all that he remembered; her smiling, innocent, flawless face, beaming at him as she took off in his father's spaceship and vanished forever in the dark trenches of outer space. 


	10. Chapter Ten

What's up ahead may not be suitable for all you youngsters---just a little warning there  
  
Chapter 10  
  
The night's atmosphere was hushed. Through the gently ringing voices at the bar, long periods of stillness escaped. The same oily lighting, the same jazzy tune. A leggy woman was singing about lost love in the corner. This was the world both of them lived in. A generous helping of scotch, a blurred vision of reality, and the faint remembrance of what they had both had and lost.  
  
As she leaned her elbows against the bar, Faye had almost forgotten Spike next to her. In her mind worked the machinations of a betrayed woman. She thought she loved James once, she thought he loved her. It never occurred to her that he would even think of using her, of placing her life into this sort of danger. Oh, but she could handle danger, it came with the territory to her. For three years she'd been dodging various men coming after her. Day by day, moment by moment. It wasn't her own life that she hated James for endangering, it was the life of another man that she deeply loved. The life of Jet Black, the beautiful heartbeat that would never he heard again.  
  
She remembered their moments together, their laughter, their arguments. She remembered how he had comforted her on that day that Spike had descended into darkness. He did not need to say much; he only needed to give her that same, worried, warm, caring look. He was such a good person, such a good man. It broke her heart that his end had come so quickly. It should have been her, that day. But it was him. That was the way life worked, and Faye hated it. She suddenly understood how Spike must have felt the day that he had left everything to kill Vicious. Faye would desert everything herself, had she ever the chance to kill the dark figure lurking behind her.  
  
But she was running from that figure, that in a simple, matter-of-fact way, declared to her while holding up a gun, "I'd just like to speak with you, Miss Valentine." Miss Valentine, it was the way he said her name that she despised the most, the way the tall silhouette, the nameless, faceless effigy, lightly put into the air something that she had been striving all this time to forget. She no longer knew who she was. To James she had been Rose Shields, to her pursuer she was Faye Valentine. But what was she to Spike?  
  
She turned to Spike. He, himself had been deeply involved in thought. Faye watched his handsome features, stolid, unrecognizable to the outside world. Faye wished that she could understand him. He was like a mystery book she desperately wished to solve. He looked as if he needed comforting, as if he gravely desired some sort of company, some sort of consolation.  
  
"Spike," she said softly. He turned to her and looked stolidly into her eyes.  
  
Without thought she leaned in and kissed him. She only had the bravery to stay for a moment.  
  
His facial expression did not change. He stared at her as he had only moments before, the same, lazy, aloof, drawn-out glance. She wanted to change that. Inwardly, Faye knew she wanted to see on his face what she had seen when he had heard the name Julia. This was impossible, she did not delude herself about that. Nonetheless, she had the right to dream of it.  
  
She kissed him again, longer. He held his eyes open, it was as if nothing was going on. His soft, warm lips worked against her, he responded to her caress physically, yet it seemed that mentally he was somewhere else.  
  
The bartender stared at them with a smile. The two lovebirds were going to have quite the night. The whole bar was looking at their empty caress, they worked against one another, but it was easy to see that true feelings were coming from only one side. The pretty woman's hands were tight around the man's neck, yet his rested thoughtlessly on the desk. His eyes were hopelessly open, and it seemed as if he was staring at something invisible in the middle of the room. It must have been something deeply desirable, since he did not take his eyes off of one spot. It was almost as if some beautiful, touching woman stood before him, watching as he fed on the mouth of another.  
  
"I'm sorry, Spike," she whispered as she thrust away from him. But there was nothing to be sorry for. His face was still the same, and he was not looking at her. He was looking, staring, seeing, something else. She looked into the emptiness that he beheld but could not understand anything. She never could comprehend Spike in the past, how could she ever hope to penetrate him in this murky presence?  
  
For another moment that seemed like an eternity, he stared into the blank space. Then, he turned his face to her, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders and planting his lips against her once again. His tongue pushed itself into the inclinations of her lips and wrestled against hers. She did not know what to do with herself, she thighs quivered and she could not find a place for her arms. They swayed side to side and she lost herself inside of his essence.  
  
He picked himself up and carelessly took her by the arm. She awkwardly strived to follow as he led her to the back of the bar, to where the bathroom had been. They slammed the door behind them, and in the darkness, flew at one another again, like mad beasts, meaninglessly mating. He pushed her against the wall, rolling up her shorts, roughly pulling down his pants. She unbuttoned her yellow vest and he buried his face in her chest, quickly tasting her smooth flesh. She dug her nails into the hardness of his back as he picked her up, pressing her against the wall, and pushing himself inside.  
  
She moaned, throwing her legs up and wrapping them around him. He pressed his palms against the wall as she leaned her head backwards. He watched her face, empty, motionless, and then quickly transgressing into sensation. She raised her neck and he caressed it. Her eyes were nailed shut as she bit the corner of her lower lip. He placed his finger on the platform of her mouth, sliding it farther inside against her tongue. She sucked on it, staring at him with desire. He took it out of her mouth and placed it inside of his own, tasting her saliva. Then, he pressed his lips against her again. His spasmodic movements inside caused her to throw her head up, and he followed, kissing her chin, her hair that got in the way of him. Her hair smelled like her, she had that personalized smell, of flowers and musky perfume, all intermixed with the natural aphrodisiac scent of her body. He throbbed inside her, deeper and deeper, faster and faster, harder and harder. They rocked together against the wall as if it was an earthquake, a gigantic explosion, a calamity, catastrophe, end of the world! And with her loud scream, with his subsiding motion, they climaxed simultaneously.  
  
Spike removed himself from her and walked to the opposite side of the bathroom, not once turning. She watched as he pulled his pants up and stared into the mirror, brushing his hands through his hair. She slowly buttoned her shirt and uncrumpled her shorts. He looked at her to see that she was decent, and then walked out of the bathroom. She quickly followed him, while trying to comb down her disheveled hair with her fingernails.  
  
As the two strode out, the customers in the bar watched them without hesitation. They had heard the banging, they had heard the moans. Yet somehow, they did not expect to see what had come out of it. Two indifferent people, two people who barely knew one another, who barely cared for one another. The man looked for a moment at the empty space he studied earlier, but apparently its charm had disappeared because he quickly turned away.  
  
The bartender was the most struck as they walked out. He had even forgotten that they had forgotten to pay the bill.  
  
Once inside the ship, Spike and Faye did not speak. They looked ahead silently as they passed through the moon gate, and into outer space. Faye could only guess what went on inside of Spike's head---no, she couldn't even guess. She looked into her lap somberly before redirecting her attention at the stars. It was such a strange night, such a beautiful night. There was no need to ruin the quiet peace of what she saw before her. She was resolute that they would discuss what had happened in the morning.  
  
They never did. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter 11  
  
"Hey, Spike," Faye said quietly, sucking on a cigarette and fingering the skin of her inner thigh, "Have you ever been in love?"  
  
He looked up but didn't answer.  
  
"Oops!" She laughed, "sorry I forgot."  
  
He remained silent.  
  
"I've been in love once," she said with a smile, "and it was wonderful. I swear, it was!"  
  
He was annoyed, but did not say a word.  
  
"And all that touchy-feely shit, that was wonderful; but what really got me was---"  
  
"Faye---" he tried.  
  
"No listen!" She exclaimed, "Anyway, where was I? Oh yes! What really got me was the sex."  
  
He looked up and studied her face. She stared at him, holding out for a second before breaking into laughter.  
  
"You know," She whispered, "James---Lord bless his little heart, always told me I was this---this---this---"  
  
"Faye---"  
  
"This tiger! That's what I was, a real tiger when it came to fooling around, yeah," she smiled, getting up and swaying her hips as she danced, "I'm a real tiger," she growled.  
  
"Have you been to the bar again?" he asked her calmly.  
  
"Just a few drinks-"  
  
"How many?"  
  
"Just---two---or six?" she thought to herself and giggled again.  
  
"Maybe you should lie down for a second---" he told her.  
  
"Lie down? I've only just gotten up, you silly little cowboy."  
  
She walked up to him and pulled her arms around his neck, burying his face in her breasts. He pushed her away and held her by the arms.  
  
"What?" she screamed indignantly, "what, I don't appeal to you tonight? Don't wanna fuck me on this particular evening?"  
  
"I'm not going to hold this against you in the morning, Faye, when you wake up hungover and humiliated. Just make sure you don't push your boundaries."  
  
"My boundaries?" she shook her head and ripped out of his grasp, laughing hysterically, "my damn boundaries!"  
  
She lay on the bed and spread her legs, "Come on, Spike, I'm waiting."  
  
"Waiting for what?" he asked quietly, diverting his eyes away.  
  
"I'm waiting for you and your damn manhood. What? Why are you looking at me like that? I may not be Julia, but I'm great in bed!"  
  
She had gone too far.  
  
"Julia?" He asked quietly, staring her down with his fiercely silent gaze.  
  
"Yes---" she replied dubiously, as if unsure of herself for the first time that night. But then she remembered herself and giggled again, "Yes, Julia. Tell me, who's better, me or her?"  
  
He walked fiercely to her and grabbed her shoulders with all of his strength. His face dug into hers and she looked into his eyes. This reminded her of another time when she was confronted with those magnetic, dark, brooding eyes. Yet somehow it was different now. Then he was but a man who had lost hope. Now, he had become a monster.  
  
"You want to know who's better?" he asked her roughly, his hot breath against her face, she shook in his grip, "you forgot to specify: better at what?"  
  
She pushed her face away but he caught her chin and harshly confronted her visage with his again. She suddenly couldn't speak.  
  
"Because you're better at many things, so many things."  
  
For a moment, a light of expectation appeared on her face, but soon vanished when she saw the look he was giving her.  
  
"You're better at whoring," he pushed against her face, "at selling that worthless outer image to the highest bidder, although seldom ever bid high. You're better at giving up, and crying, lying and cheating your way to the top and still not succeeding at anything. You're better at being closeminded, and meddling in others' affairs without being invited. You're better at repulsing, at making people hate you at first sight because of your fickle nature, because of your lack of respect for anything that any normal human being could ever value. You're better disappointing people, at never keeping your promises, standing up for what you believe, or taking responsibility for your foolish actions. You're better at being afraid, being afraid of anything that requires any human sensitivity or dignity. You're better at disgracing the name we give to women. Hell, you're better than---" he paused, as if afraid to say her name, "---her---in so many things."  
  
"Spike---" she wanted to defend herself, she wanted to say something but she could not figure out what.  
  
"So you wanna know what I want to do to you right now?" he asked, breathing in the smell of her hair, a smell that he hated and lusted for simultaneously, "I want to rip off those clothes, expose you entirely, hog you, feel you, touch you. I want to fuck you, to slide myself inside of you and fuck you, that's what I want, I want to fuck you. But do you want to know what I don't want to do? I don't want to kiss you. Hell, I pity any man who is ever going to want to kiss those lips. You've really got to be trash to love trash."  
  
He released her and she fell back on the bed. Spike watched her lying there, exposed, ready to give up her last shreds of dignity simply because she was afraid of being alone. He could have taken advantage of it, but he didn't. He turned away and walked to the door.  
  
"Can I tell you a secret, Spike?" she suddenly asked and he stopped, without turning to look at her.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I'm drunk," was all that she could say.  
  
He nodded, "It's a shame, Faye. You could have been a lovely woman, have you only not been a bitter hag."  
  
He left the room and locked the door behind him.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
Spike,  
  
Listen, I can't do things like you. I don't have the heart, or lack thereof, to make possible this sort of innuendo. I have not a talent, or a skill, to perpetuate that coldness, and I still shudder at how easily you can discharge a lifetime of memories simply because you are tired of it all. You live your life freely, moving boldly from place to place, striding, impressing, and becoming. You move and move in constant continuation but you never seem to get anywhere. It's as if you've reached a dead end but cannot break it to your joints and muscles that the grand finale had come and it was not as grand as you imagined it to be. You will push against that until it destroys you, consumes you in its cold indifference, in its motionless demeanor. But even then you will not care. You would rather die on a search for what your heart entitles freedom than live confined to the secure luxuries of staying in one place. When you are gone, the world will be a little different, those little things that effect the big picture in the long run. You are just one little person, but you believe into great things that little people do, you have an overrated value system. I always wondered things about you. Do you believe in waking up to a fresh cup of coffee on a crisp, autumn morning, or feeling the rush of wind against your face as you look up at the stars from the highest peak of the highest mountain? You probably wouldn't much care for these, and yet the smell of a pretty girl's perfume can incite you in ways unimaginable, causing your consistence to rush into a wave and break dauntlessly, fearlessly, awkwardly, yet simultaneously gracefully, against the white, blissed out shores of so many pointless islands.  
  
And now, I cannot look you in the eyes and say that I don't feel for you the greatest of emotions. But what can I do with these emotions? My heart resents its uselessness deeper every day, and maybe it will be healthy for me to go and find that trash that will not mind kissing my lips. You will go west and I will go east and never again will our paths cross. Some people might think it's a shame, since we have such a history together. I know that I will be lonely again, and you will be dead inside (you might have always been, who knows?) But that is just the price we have to pay for being who we are. I'm sorry for being the second woman to ever love you; believe me; I am being punished harshly for my sins.  
  
Faye  
  
He found the letter on the nightstand, folded awkwardly and printed in a haste. Faye's things were gone from the room, and it felt relatively empty. Spike stood there for some moments before stirring. If he had never cared for her, he thought to himself, why did he suddenly feel so devoid? 


	12. Chapter Twelve

Remember a fan fiction that went like this?  
  
I'm so sorry for the long wait. I was just too busy being young and shallow during the summer, and I don't really watch television anymore. But whatever. I want to finish this one, so I'll try to update more frequently now. Once again, I'm sooooo sorry for the long wait, and it's never going to happen again (which is probably a lie, but w/e) Enjoy!!  
  
. .  
  
Chapter 12  
  
It had been hours since he was unresponsive. Maxim stared out the window, embracing with him mind the quivering rain against his window. It had been days since he had thought, hours since he ate. What was the matter? The trouble in the company, the slow movement of the newly built up and newly deteriorating syndicate, or that she wasn't there anymore, that she wasn't by his side?  
  
He closed his eyes and instinctively faced the nymph depicted on the inner lining of his lid. Her smiling image, bronze skin, bright eyes. She was such a child and he knew it, for he had loved her for being a child. Why did he let her go, watch her without motion when she departed from his home that rainy afternoon when her thin shoulders convulsed spasmodically and the corners of her lips were turned down?  
  
And the emotion on her face still lingered in his mind. How she grimaced, a smirk at simultaneous pleasure and pain when he had entered her, when she wrapped her legs around him, embraced with her quivering arms the last bit of humanity that he had left. The way her small breasts felt against his chest, the way their heartbeats collided. The glory and the shame of deflowering a masterpiece, unleashing a zephyr and a tempest. The way her small hands dug into his back, the way she moaned, almost in recognition. He was a man and for those brief moments she was a woman. No, not a child, a woman. But only then; after they came apart she retained her innocence. It was a price she did not have to pay. Perhaps, it was she who had deflowered him.  
  
No one ever needs to know about this, Ed, it was a one time thing.no one ever needs to know. And despite whatever protests she may have had, he would never embrace her anyway. It was a mistake being with her, putting his heart up for something so unworthy. She was still such a naiveté, how could she ever comprehend the consequences of abandonment, of giving up everything for your love but never having anything in return. No, he did not want to kiss her skin; he did not want to smell her hair. It was over before it even started, why couldn't she understand that?  
  
"You are just a child, you have no comprehension of these things," he told her that somber day and wondered if she had believed him. She didn't, she saw right through the hard exterior, she comprehended his very core. He was as much of a child as she, but he was too much of a coward to admit it. And nothing can ever be crueler than a child at play. He had played with her, and then he had left her. He had left her because he knew that she would never really leave. She was that toy that he had tossed aside, into a corner, where it was within his peripheral vision, but never in the focus point. It would lie there forever and he would be satisfied, but had a different child dared to touch that toy, such fury would erupt from the former that no other treasure in the world would be comparable to that beaten, old doll, unwittingly reclining in the arms of another.  
  
It was too early in the morning for Johnny to turn on the television and see his father's beaten spaceship. It was too early in the morning and too late in his life.  
  
It lay in the back of a news reporter who spoke about a massive accident that occurred in outer space. It appeared that a small ship crashed into a large passenger liner. Several passengers on the liner had minor injuries, whereas the driver of the ship was badly wounded and in critical condition.  
  
The camera cued on the face of the victim, a young girl who might have been beautiful once, but in her darkened features of lifelessness, the aspect was growing harder to determine by the moment. Johnny sprang up, hating himself for it. Had he not been hoping for this? Had he not been dreaming that this happen to her? He had, indeed, wanted some unknown catastrophe to strike so she would realize how powerless she was in the face of the world and come home, just so he could ridicule her and then forgive her and live happily ever after with humble Francoise by his side.  
  
And there she was, crushed by reality, all of her dreams fading away. And yet, when she opened her eyes, all of the donned glory of her face was immediately returned by the strong, willful gaze of her eyes. Did Johnny not understand that she could not live his life? She had understood at once that he could not live hers. And yet he still lived in denial that she was going to be his. He'd always wanted that, he'd always dreamed of that as he looked across the classroom at her disconnected face. Why was this beautiful, mysterious girl so unattainable? He had always been able to get girls he liked; why did he not have such luck with this one?  
  
And suddenly he hated her. Who did she think she was? Stealing his ship, lying to him, leaving him alone in the middle of nowhere. And now he had an advantage, he knew where she was, and would be, for the next couple of days. He had seen her condition; he knew that she would not be getting out of the hospital anytime soon. The Metropolitan Hospital on Mars: that was where she was. Perhaps a day's drive if he went fast. And then he stopped, why was he thinking this? She would be brought home eventually. There was no need for him to go after her. He didn't even have a ship anymore. He could borrow one, of course, or rent it with the money he had accumulated over the summer doing chores for various neighbors. But what would be the point? She wasn't worth it, yet somehow, she was.  
  
If she had opened her eyes, if she had seen him sitting there, perhaps she would fall in love with him, perhaps she would care. Maybe it would work. It could work if he wanted it to work. But he had doubts it would. No, he wasn't going to chase her across the galaxy; he had better things to do.  
  
And then he did the craziest thing he had ever done. He went; he went to see her, to rescue her, to bring her home to him. No, he wouldn't tell her parents, or the authorities. He was going to be a hero all on his own. She would fall in love with him; like all other girls, Françoise would love him too.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
YAN was a large skyscraper in the center of Mars. It was one of the three tallest on the planet, the other two going to the rebuilt Red Dragons Organization on the opposite side of planet and the Metropolitan Hospital, only several blocks down. The front lobby was busy with visitors and employees, all fitting into busy-bee equilibrium. The operator at the front desk, a middle-aged woman with dark eyes and dyed hair, answered the telephone incessantly and paid little attention to what went out around her. It took her several minutes to realize that someone wanted to speak with her.  
  
"May I help you?" the operator, whose nametag suggested Susie, asked when she faced a tall woman with flowing blonde locks and green eyes. The woman was dressed in a dark business suit that congratulated her dangerous curves.  
  
"Yes, please," the woman said, "I would like to speak with the president of this organization."  
  
Susie stared at the woman for a moment before breaking into laughter. She shrieked for several moments before regaining her strength to speak.  
  
"I'm sorry, ma'am," she said uneasily, "but I'm afraid that's not possible."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"First of all," she began, "you need an appointment, and second, you'll need to be on a waiting list for an appointment."  
  
"How long might that take?" The woman asked Susie.  
  
"Oh, too long."  
  
"I can wait. Two days? Three?"  
  
The secretary broke into laughter again. The woman stared at her with a blank face.  
  
"You're obviously confused," Susie said after a moment.  
  
"No, I think the only one that's confused here is you. I need to speak to someone right away. It's important."  
  
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to go now. You can do it freely or I can call security."  
  
The woman sighed. She walked away from the desk and was lost in the crowd. The operator instantly forgot and looked down at her desk, waiting for more phone calls.  
  
Faye groaned to herself as she followed the secession of the crowd. She had to know the truth, yet knew not whom to ask. She thought it out to the point that she would need a disguise. It was Mars, after all. For all she knew, those men, who had been quite for a while, were still after her. There she was, on Mars, in YAN, but who would help her with her worries? And what was in that microchip within her arm? What information? And then there was that intuition that Faye hated about herself. How much was this information worth?  
  
Plenty enough, apparently, for the time and effort spent on hunting her down. The faceless men might someday return, that dark silhouette that had tortured her. Somehow, she had forgotten about their existence for a while. After all, she was with Spike. He could protect her; she was in no real danger when she was by his side. But not anymore, things had happened and it tore her heart apart to remember them. He was dead for all she needed to care, and he would never come alive again. It was something she knew she had to accept unconditionally.  
  
And yet a fragment of her mentality was strained, for he still lingered in her mind, no matter how hard she tried to block it out. His face, his smile, so sad, so tragic. And those forlorn eyes of his, but what did it matter now? Yet when she went to buy a wig, why did she choose one with long, blonde hair? Why did she wear dark clothing and sunglasses to disguise herself? It was as if Faye was unwittingly impersonating someone who was no longer alive, yet lived on through memory. Someone---  
  
"Julia?" she heard from behind and instinctively turned her head, almost fainting. It was a face she did not recognize, a man of short stature with a thick goatee and large spectacles. There was a flicker of hope in his eyes which immediately vanished when he realized that she was not the woman he was looking for.  
  
"I'm sorry," the old man whispered and sped away. Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was curiosity, but Faye found herself rushing after him.  
  
"Wait---Julia? You know Julia?" She spoke to the startled stranger.  
  
He looked at her with unease and paused, "I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am."  
  
"You're lying. You knew Julia."  
  
The man contemplated for a moment, "I don't know you."  
  
Faye nodded, "I'm sorry, then." She turned and began to walk away. This time, it was the man that rushed after her.  
  
"You knew her too? You knew Julia?"  
  
Faye stopped and stared into his eyes, moistness was gathering around.  
  
"Maybe this isn't the place to speak of this," she told him.  
  
"No," he agreed, "it is not."  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
The café was only half full. Busy employees of surrounding companies were just winding down on their lunch breaks. The place was bright, and large windows supplied a full view of the street. It had been raining for days, and the grayness was as depressing as the sheltered pedestrians that walked the streets.  
  
Faye and the stranger sat in silence for a while, staring out of the window and drinking coffee. It was he who disrupted the quiet.  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
She looked at him for a moment in contemplation, which name did she want to give?  
  
"Rose," she said quietly.  
  
"That's a pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty woman."  
  
Faye smiled, "Thank you."  
  
He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if remembering a far away time.  
  
"Julia---she was beautiful. I've seen many pretty women, pretty in comparison to others. But if they stood next to a real beauty---but how many real beauties do you meet in one lifetime?"  
  
Somehow, Faye was not offended. She agreed wholeheartedly.  
  
"I was lucky enough to meet one. Sweet little Julia. I can still see her at fifteen, so quiet, so scared. Like a little kitten, pending along a dark street she hadn't walked before. She had no home, no past. Nothing left to go back to. At least that's what she claimed. It was like she was born on the day that I met her. Bruises on her, those told me otherwise. So innocent, yet with a past. Isn't that intriguing? Julia always had a thing for men who hurt her. Once, she told me her father was a bad man, that's all I ever knew about what happened to her before the day when she waited on me in a sleazy old diner just a few blocks down."  
  
"Men who hurt her?" Faye stumbled, almost to herself.  
  
"You know the funny thing about outward appearances? It's the weakest ones that look the strongest. I remember watching her. Mao and I, we always watched her. We wanted her, you know. Every man she's ever known wanted her in some way."  
  
Faye's face remained motionless. Being wanted, being desired. Why did he speak of that as if it were some sort of curse?  
  
"Isn't it funny how life goes? When chance bestows upon you something valuable, it becomes so much harder living. Life is hard only when you have something to live for."  
  
"Life is hard either way," Faye interrupted.  
  
The old man stared at her, "You're right, Rose. But staying alive is much harder to desire than dying."  
  
"I know someone who would probably agree with you on that."  
  
"Spike," the man said quietly. Faye did not need to confirm, nor was she surprised that the old man had guessed. Spike, who else? Who else would rather die than live?  
  
"How is YAN connected to the Red Dragons?" Faye asked suddenly.  
  
The man stared at her blankly, "That's what you're after, huh? It was nice meeting you Rose, but I must get back to work."  
  
He raised himself from the chair. Faye's eyes widened, "No! Please, sir!"  
  
He began to walk away.  
  
"I need you, please!" she called after him, "I've been told to contact YAN by someone."  
  
"Whom?" he asked, disinterested.  
  
"I am not sure if I can trust you."  
  
"Then I'll be on my way."  
  
"James Shields."  
  
This was enough. He was on alert.  
  
"James Shields? What's this about? Who are you?"  
  
"My name is Rose Shields," she said quietly, "I'm his wife."  
  
"You're Faye Valentine," he said unflinchingly, "I should have known."  
  
.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
A/N: Well, that's it for now. Hopefully, now that summer's over and I'm focusing on my writing again, I won't spend my days partying and will actually write more. Not that any of this is real writing, it's just me being bored. But, whatever. Reviews inspire me *hint hint* 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13  
  
The old man didn't give her much for a name. He told her to call him Messenger, and she complied in a quiet discontentment. He drove her to his home, a large loft downtown with enormous windows that poured light from the outside into the room. Faye stood in the middle, on the hard parquet, and said nothing. He was silent too. She walked towards a window and looked outside at the cars speeding through the busy streets. A part of her felt sad at that moment, and she thought to herself that if she jumped, it would have been a good way to go.  
  
Going, she'd been thinking a lot about going lately.  
  
Messenger approached her from behind, but kept his distance. He stood about a meter or so behind her, and watched the way her fictitious blonde hair gently nested around her neck and wove down her lower back. He extended his hand and felt its texture. It was soft, felt so real. He gathered a strand in his palm and sighed, wrapped his finger around it and uncurled it, moving his hand down her lower back, where her waist extended in a dangerous curve. He placed his hands on her shoulders and ceased breathing for a moment. He was old, gray, and hopeless. She was young, beautiful, but hopeless as well.  
  
"I want you too," he whispered, "I'll tell you everything you want to know if I can only have you for one night."  
  
She panted for a moment, closed her eyes, and fought against the feeling of wrongness in her stomach. She was cold, afraid, unwhole, and he slid off her coat, touched her pale shoulders with his rough hands. She might have said something then, but her dullness was overpowering. All she could do was whisper, "What do you know?"  
  
He pressed his head to the nape of her neck and inhaled her scent. His hands worked their way across her rib cage and up over her breasts. She perceived none of this. Nothing could silence the voices ringing through her mind.  
  
"I know everything," he whispered, "everything."  
  
"Who was Spike, really?" she asked.  
  
"Mao's boy. Worked mostly at the top. Was a bodyguard for a while, slowly drifted into hits when times got hard."  
  
A different sort of hardness pressed into the fabric of Faye's coat. She opened her eyes widely but didn't move. She couldn't stop now, not when he was finally telling her the truth.  
  
"Hard times?"  
  
"The Syndicate Wars, don't you read the newspapers?"  
  
"As a matter of fact I don't." His hands slid up over her thighs and attempted to slip into her pantyhose. Her hands stopped him.  
  
"Tell me everything first."  
  
He let go of Faye's waist and walked some feet back. Messenger sighed and folded his hands.  
  
"The Dragons, they were having a hard time. Mars was too small, it seemed, to harbor more than one Syndicate. Lots of blood spilled, as we tried to keep the population down. Our biggest problem was the Cantonese syndicate that used to run on the opposite side of town. It was a crimson battle, and Spike was something of a general. That was back in the days when he still ran around with the likes of Vicious and---Julia."  
  
"Julia," Faye whispered. "How was she involved in this?"  
  
"Well, don't be fooled by her fragile eyes," Messenger paused, "Remember how I said it's the ones who look the weakest that are the strongest? Julia could kill with her smile, but she mostly preferred a gun. She was smart too, very smart. A part of her hated human beings. Once, she was caught unarmed by a group of rival thugs, she was seventeen or so. When they were done with her, one could barely recognize the woman beneath the bruises. She never told anyone about what happened to her on that night, except Vicious maybe. Whatever happened though, she remembered every one of their faces. Two weeks or so later, the night she got out of the hospital, she and Vicious disappeared for a night. Next morning, the news were flooding with a story about a massacre in some bar. A puddle of blood, and enough bodies to launch a full blown investigation. It wasn't so uncommon in this part of town, gang violence, old news, you know? But this time was different. Five or so were dismembered, if you know what I mean. Julia never told anyone what the men did, but it must have been bad."  
  
Faye was shaking, her body quivered and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Nevertheless, she remained steadfast. She told him to continue.  
  
Julia and Vicious, they disappeared for a while. They showed up a month a later, expecting punishment, I guess. They got a promotion. She had the face of an angel, Julia, but her heart was as dark as the baddest of the boys that worked for me over time, maybe even worse. Women are capable of amazing cruelty, you know. Perhaps that was why she was with Vicious in the first place."  
  
Faye's eyes opened widely, "She was with Vicious? But what about Spike?"  
  
"You really don't know a thing about this?" Messenger asked.  
  
Faye shook her head, still staring at the window, "Spike was never one to share."  
  
"Spike was Vicious' partner. They knew each other since they were at the bottom, but then parted ways for a little while, that was when Julia came along. After the incident though, the pair was reunited again. The Syndicate wanted blood, and the two love birds had displayed quite a thirst for it. The two men, they got close after that, and they brought Julia in too. I still remember the three of them, in a dim bar, smoking and playing pool. They were always together, inseparable. Like a romantic fucking comedy about murderers. And then Spike started falling for Julia, became something of a pussy after that. Vicious noticed and didn't quite like it. And that's how that old broken record goes."  
  
"What kind of blood were they after?"  
  
Spike, Julia, and Vicious were commissioned to take out as many Syndicate officers as they could in order to insure a safe victory for the Red Dragons. This was a time when diplomacy was still not on the menu. Before long, with some twenty five assassinated high ranking officials behind them, the trio was the most targeted group in town. It became something of a habit for the three to engage in gun battles every night, as more and more underlings were sent to kill them. Through the tumult of their professional life, shone a bright light of the personal. It was evident that Spike was fond Julia, and though Messenger could not answer why that was so, it was evident that something about the woman existed that drew men wild. Perhaps it was that she was a real beauty, perhaps something else that she displayed only in private and only to the two men of her life. With every violent incident, Julia's life came dangerously close to ending, and this drove Spike into a panic even Vicious did not feel.  
  
A realization that life was not never-ending, forced Spike into doubt. This occurred one rainy night when he was smoking a cigarette and strolling down a wet sidewalk, watching the glare of the puddles shining red and blue from the neon signs a couple of blocks down. He heard footsteps behind him then, and gunshots some moments later. Before he knew it, he was involved in a violent gunfight, shooting left and right, but losing the battle due to his singular stature.  
  
To omit the details, he was pretty banged up after that. Got shot in the eye. And where does a man with ten bullets in his limbs go on a planet like Mars? Not the Hospital. There was only one place he could go, really. That was how Julia found him that night, passed out outside her apartment building.  
  
She dragged him inside, bandaged him, called Mao, and did anything she could to keep him from dying. Perhaps it was at this moment that Julia, too, began to realize the value of human life. Watching Spike's feeble body coloring the sheets of her bed with blood stains, she became something of a "pussy" too. She scoured her apartment for some pain medication, knowing well that she had none. Sooner or later he was going to wake up and become confronted with what the world was really like, and how much it hurt. She watched the blood oozing through the tourniquet she had placed over his eye. She closed her own and telepathically felt the pain that he must have been suffering. A part of her wanted to kiss him, touch him, love him. A part of her wanted to preserve him as he was then, before he knew the truth, that he would never see the full picture again. She wanted to save him some way, to somehow lessen the pain, to somehow show him that life would keep on going. She felt useless as she stood there, feeling him draining away, fearing that he would die, regretting every sin, every murder, ever blood stain.  
  
It was then that Julia remembered the night she was killed. The feeling of five different men inside of her, robbing her of every last bit she had to call innocence. She remembered her screaming, her emptiness, her pain. She remembered how she shook before stilling suddenly, and seeing Vicious' face imprinted on the side of her retina. She remembered how she didn't cry, how she took it all inside of her knowing already that it wouldn't kill her, that she would survive, that she would get revenge. She did survive, and she did get revenge, but she would trade all that away only for Spike's sole survival. She would betray everything, and every one. It was funny, in a way, how she didn't even realize that she had loved Spike until then.  
  
And then she thought of Vicious, and how underneath, he wasn't really so vicious after all. He had tenderness, a frightening sort of tenderness. He held her like he needed her, he kissed her like he wanted her, and he hit her like he loved her. A part of him belonged to Julia, it was a destructive belonging, she instinctively knew she would some day be the path to his, and her own, destruction. As she watched Spike, she partially understood that he would die some day because of her, that Vicious would never stand for betrayal, and somehow she still didn't care. She didn't care about the future, it was all part of waking up. She preferred to dream, instead. Nothing ever hurt in dreams, it was a beautiful sort of dullness. And there Spike was, in an even deeper state of sleep, dreaming about something she could only guess. It was then that a thought came into her mind. She remembered a tune she used to play before falling asleep, a soft melody of a music box she once owned that her mother had given her before she ran off on Julia and her father, a bad man. She had given the music box to Vicious one snowy morning, when beneath a light shower of crystals melting in her hair, she looked like an angel and he thought that she was his salvation.  
  
She sat in her favorite rocking chair and sewed, quietly humming the tune of that music box, a song that Vicious named after her. It was then that Spike awoke and she stared at him, with a startled, forlorn tragedy in her eyes.  
  
"Don't stop," he told her tenderly, "Sing for me, just like that."  
  
So she continued singing. And that was how that old broken record went.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
Messenger did not tell Faye the whole story, mostly because he didn't know the whole story himself. They got back to business shortly after that. He was tired of talking about Julia.  
  
"Tell me more about the Syndicate War," Faye said, trying to forget about Spike, to stay on topic.  
  
"Well, before long, Spike supposedly dies off, Julia runs away, Vicious stays alone. Suddenly, he's a little too fixated on his job. We get bloodier and bloodier by the day, and before you know it, we've exterminated everybody worth fighting except the Cantonese gang I mentioned earlier. That's when Mao comes into play. Now Mao sees that times are changing, has time to have one final conversation with Spike before his death. He's never fully convinced Spike's gone, keeps claiming he's still alive. Now supposedly, Spike inspires a new idea in Mao, diplomacy. He goes to the elders upstairs, brings the matter into their consideration. They agree. Before you know it, we're breaking bread with the Cantonese, decide to work together, nothing better than team-work, you know? Well that didn't sit too good with Vicious. He thinks diplomacy is weakness. Before you know it, Mao's dead. The elders let it slide, to their own demise. I'm sure you've read THAT in the newspapers."  
  
Faye nodded.  
  
"And then Julia resurfaces. Vicious uses her as a tracking device to reach Spiegel. Before you know it, we've got ourselves three dead icons on our hands. That wasn't in the papers, but I suspect you know about that too."  
  
Faye nodded again. "What about my husband? What about YAN? Who are the men following me?"  
  
"There are men following you?" he paused, "Why am I surprised? Well, James Shields was the last bang of the elders."  
  
The elders had a plan of revenge in the case of a takeover. They arranged it onto a trustful pawn that after their deaths, all of the wulongs Red Dragon had to operate with would be immediately transferred into about a billion bank accounts scattered throughout the galaxy. This, of course was indirect revenge. What can a Syndicate do without money? How can one who overthrew the elders, in the particular case, Vicious, lead without any means to get by? But they didn't want the Dragon legacy to die either. They wanted a trustful, honorable man to take over after their deaths. At the time, they supposed Shields was the one for the job. The elders commissioned a company they owned, YAN, to work out a database with the account numbers and the banks where the money was hidden. They later coded this program in such a way that it would be inaccessible by any means except through information contained on a microchip that they had trusted onto Shields when he first began service. The operation was covert, and only after Spike and Vicious finished each other off, after all the money disappeared, did the Syndicate descendents find out about this database. By then, Shields was nowhere to be seen. They tried to hack the database, they really did. But tough luck, it was INACCESSIBLE. They had the best hackers in the world, hell they worked hard at it. But the last funds were running low, and they knew that it would be all over without the microchip.  
  
Luckily for them, Shields resurfaced. It so happened that he had gotten married to a woman named Faye Valentine, who was ironically Spike's past shipmate. The whole story was one big irony. They plugged Shields when he was on his honeymoon, but couldn't find the microchip or his little wife. They guessed partially right, Faye would lead them to the chip. What they didn't know was that the chip was inside of Faye. Shields used Faye as the chip carrier. He placed it into protoplasm and dissolved the subject in her wrist when she was unaware.  
  
Faye did not tell Messenger this.  
  
"So the men who are following me are looking for the chip?"  
  
"You catch on fast," the old man said.  
  
"Are you going to turn me in?"  
  
Messenger looked at her sadly.  
  
"No," he said, "Mao wouldn't do it, and neither would I."  
  
Faye nodded, and finally turned towards him. He looked into her emerald eyes. He approached her and cupped her face in his hands, running his fingers up and down her cheek. His face got in close proximity to hers and she stopped breathing for a moment. It was then that she reached up and removed her wig, exposing the purple shortness of her own hair. He was taken aback for a moment, and then moved closer and kissed her forehead, removing his hands from her face.  
  
"You're like her in so many ways," he said quietly. And then, in a sympathetic tone added, "I'm sorry."  
  
Faye's eyes stared into his innocently, and she realized that he was letting her go. Quickly, she picked her coat up from the floor and pulled it over her shoulders. She made her way to the door and opened it. His voice halted her for a moment before she walked out.  
  
"I was wrong," he told her softly, "you are a real beauty." 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter 14

She had almost stopped missing him. Her will had improved dramatically. No whispers of regret slid by her heart much longer. She had at last reached an equilibrium. Sitting in a damp break lobby of a sleazy diner, her mind wandered to a time she had once assured herself she would never revisit. It came back to her on occasion, spasmodic fits of memories which she attempted to repress the best she could. She would smoke cigarettes so as to quicken the coming of her physical death. She should have died that day, when the world was a blur of pristine raindrops and lyrical doves, and the way that it felt when he held her was how she always wanted to feel.   
  
He was dead now, and she was alive. She was, as someone superstitious might proclaim, the living dead. A walking contradiction: always her style.  
  
She shouldn't have been alive. She was almost looking forward to Hell. How bad could it possibly be? At least Hell admitted its treachery. People in Hell were just like her, sinners, killers, liars. People in Hell were unhappy, jealous, cowardly, vindictive. She would feel at home in Hell. For the first time in her life belong.  
  
"Gwen," said an old waitress, a wrinkled, unhappy woman in a sweat-stained uniform, "are you going to take long?"  
  
Gwen shook her head.  
  
"Let me finish my cigarette, and I'll be out," she said calmly. She stopped disliking authority.  
  
The final ashes burned into the tray and she exhaled and lifted to her feet. Her legs felt heavy and she began to fall, making a quick grab for the table. Leaning on the cheap plywood, she rested her miniscule weight onto her arms and straightened her flailing knees. She closed her eyes tightly and stretched her back, moaning softly from the pain. A look of misery overtook her facial features for a moment, and then her visage entered a mold of stoic dullness. In the most efficient way possible, she limped to the door.   
  
It had been months since the operation, since she was able to walk again, and still she was in confusion. She had a habit of examining her naked body in the mirror, her ruptured spine, the bullet wound, the right leg two inches shorter than the left. She looked like a corpse, emancipated, pale, unclean. Her body had bugun to atrophy during nearly two years of inactivity, confinement to a hospital room full of unsympathetic nurses with cold hands, and she had lost most of her muscle. Following her operation, she was happy to get out and to take care of herself again, to worry about everyday annoyances. Twenty months in the darkness of her remembrances was purgatory enough. She cared about nothing but survival anymore. Her hair, dirty and tied back, framed her diminishing face and her once-graceful cheekbones. Her eyes were blue, sad, and large. Her skin had begun to wrinkle and she wore cheap make-up so as to appear younger to the perverts that facilitated her workplace.  
  
A history of bleak unhappiness, a near-death experience, and a robotic spinal chord could do that to a girl.   
  
Gwen left the break room and approached a table of two dirty truck drivers with a menu. The pair watched her frail body. She may have been thin and flimsy, but she did look best in the tacky pink uniform the managers insisted on waitresses' wearing.   
  
"What would you like to order?" she asked with an air of indifference.   
  
"I'd like to order you on the side," one drunk said.  
  
"Or on your back," supplied the other.  
  
Gwen looked at them with a look that almost resembled caring. It quickly faded. There was once a time when she could have killed them both with a snap of her fingers and a shot of her gun, but times had changed and she realized that.  
  
"Will that be all?" was all she said.  
  
If only he were there.

* * *

Spike Spiegel still loved Julia. He would never stop loving Julia. Julia was not the sort of woman men stopped loving. 

She was tragedy, drama, adventure, romance. She was a symbol of female sophistication, intuition, and fruitfulness. There was no getting over how much he loved Julia. Otherwise, what man in his right mind would let Faye go?

* * *

Faye never told Spike her second secret, and she herself didn't know why. Maybe it was because she knew that deep down inside, Spike was already aware of the truth. Faye had wondered on several occasions why she didn't tell Spike the truth about the night she later on concluded was a dream but knew inwardly was not. Maybe it was because she really did love Spike and didn't want to lose him; but she had lost him anyway. No, that couldn't have been the reason. Something else guarded her from divulging the truth, even to herself. She pretended it wasn't true, but she couldn't deny that it was. She knew.   
  
She knew.  
  
About four months before ending up on Callisto, and half a year since the dark men began to pursue her, she was hiding out on an obscure chunk of space debris populated by unfortunates. It was a Hell of sorts, an overnight fix of red-eye and cheap sex. Callisto was a five-star resort compared to the old immobile asteroid.   
  
The asteroid was perfect for the likes of Faye. Nobody asked questions, nor answered them. Nobody was happy, either. It was one of the few places to which she felt she truly belonged.   
  
Severed from the universe, the haven of the miserables had politics of its own in the shape of a sort of anarchy. No one got into anyone's way. It was the sort of respect even the most respected often vye for. A calm, pathetic, undisturbed existence. Sinners were great at leading calm, pathetic, undisturbed existences. Faye was great at them too.   
  
On a gloomy intersection between yesteryear and the impediment of continuance, where the fork in the road displayed a modest sign, "Annie's Diner" although it was really a place for drunks to get away and no one named Annie had entered the door for about fifteen years, Faye sat quietly at the bar and smoked a cigarette, partially because she hoped it would some day kill her. Her eyes stared into the ceiling, or perhaps the floor, as she drank and cringed from the glass of tonic and gin.   
  
Faye drank all night, drank perhaps because she couldn't cry, perhaps because another damnation of society was that, in the day and age, even women weren't granted the luxury. She drowned in her tonic and gin like one drowns in sorrow, closing her eyes for a moment and perhaps thinking back to a time when things were different, when her husband was still alive, when she thought she had moved on and forgotten old wounds. A fight broke out in the back room over a game of billiard and she heard two shots fired. She sighed and ignored it, calling for the bartender, asking for another.  
  
The bartender, in the shape of an old woman named Sally,ÿhad approached and theraputically handed the young woman another drink. That was her training; she was used to broken down human beings entering the bar and asking for excessive amounts of alcohol. It was all protocol to her. Sally, herself, was an unhappy woman. She didn't much like to think about it, and comforted herself with the problems of her clients. There were plenty of those. When she saw the young woman with tragic eyes, she also sensed (with that acute intuition that develops when one spends too much time around miserable wrecks) that the aforementioned drunk was something of an abberation. She had the eyes of one who had lost everything worth living for, although the bartender didn't quite believe in the state of being. Life wasn't really existence on the asteroid, and consequently neither was death. It was the unwritten law not to fear death. Death was a theorhetical assumption made by those who had too much time on their hands and therefore pondered such things as respiration.   
  
The bartender wanted to hear about Faye's problems. She could not drink alcohol on the job, but had learned to replace it through the fermentation of grief. She felt particularly low that night.  
  
"Another one?" she asked Faye quietly.  
  
Faye looked up and with her eyes proclaimed affirmitive without saying words.  
  
"Something must be bugging you, then."  
  
"Not at all," she said, a sudden smile appearing on her face.   
  
"Rough night, maybe?" the bartender continued, "I heard the news about strangers in these parts. They're all looking for some pretty girl. Came in here even, showed us a picture. She looked a lot like you."  
  
Faye tried to care, "What did you tell them?"  
  
"Nothing. Told them I ain't never seen a girl like that before, and if she really was on the planet she ought to give me a call. I could find a lot of work for a hot piece of ass like that."  
  
Faye's eyes widened for a moment.   
  
"Don't get me wrong. I'm sure you're built for better things. All I got me is some injured, frigid coctail waitress. The skinny blonde, over there."  
  
Faye turned to look at the silhouette of a broken down woman. Empty, emotionless, dead. She was cleaning a counter, her eyes glazed over in the direction of emptiness. Faye's heart was beating faster than it had in years.   
  
"Who is she?" Faye whispered frantically.  
  
"I don't know. No one shares their past around here. She wandered in one day asking for a job. That's all I know. Comes in on time, leaves not too early. Never gives me any trouble. All I know."  
  
Faye picked herself up and walked to the table that the aloof waitress was cleaning. She sat into a chair and stared at the figure. The waitress didn't look at her. She continued staring at a wall.  
  
"What may I get you?" the waitress asked.  
  
"Please," Faye said quietly, "please, sit down and talk to me."  
  
The waitress looked at Faye for a moment, her face stolid. She then sat down hesitantly.  
  
"Do you recognize me?" Faye whispered.  
  
"No," the waitress said without thinking.  
  
"Are you sure?" Faye surely recognized her.   
  
"Will that be all?" the disinterested waitress asked.  
  
"My name is Faye. What's yours?"  
  
"Gwen."  
  
"Gwen?"  
  
"A common name."  
  
Faye never told Spike about that night.

* * *

Spike Spiegel entered YAN with a simple stroll, a pleasant smile on his face. He was unnaturally cool for the occasion. Few noticed him, but those that did had the face as if they've just seen a ghost. With a charming greeting, he asked the secretary at the front desk for help. He didn't have to wait until she got off the phone because a group of guards approached him and calmly asked that he follow them. Spike complied.  
  
He was taken to the top level, into a large office that was occupied by two men. He only recognized one.  
  
Messenger and Maxim.  
  
"Spike," Messenger said, a look of restraint on his face.  
  
"Wow," Spike smiled, "it's like some high school reunion from hell."  
  
"Spike," Messenger whispered again.  
  
"You wouldn't have called me up if you weren't in trouble."  
  
"Remember what you said when you first woke up?"  
  
Spike paused for a moment, remembering. The white room, the dullness in his gut. For a moment, he was almost fooled to believe it was heaven. He even laughed a little when he saw a small Japanese man watching over him. He almost asked him if he was God.  
  
"You'll remind me. You always do."  
  
"You said we should have let you die. Like Vicious."  
  
Spike sighed, "You know, all I ever wanted was freedom."  
  
"Faye Valentine came around here. She wasn't with you."  
  
"And you let her go?"  
  
"You know she won't trust us. Not with the password."  
  
"And who's to say she even knows the password?"  
  
"She must. She carries the truth."  
  
Spike was silent for a moment. He thought about Faye, poor, innocent Faye. She always had a way of getting into trouble. He had tried to help her, but she slipped through his fingers.  
  
"We saved your life, Spike. Whether you wanted it or not, you have a debt to repay. If not for the Dragons, then for Mao. For Anastasia. Lin. Those who still believed in the order. We're in tumultous times, my friend. We need that chip, Spike."  
  
"Did you tell Vassiliy about Faye?" Spike asked suddenly.  
  
"No. We hope you'll find her before he does. Few outsiders survive after seeing his face."  
  
Spike nodded.  
  
"There's no way to hack into the database?"  
  
"No," Maxim suddenly spoke up, "even Radical Edward," his voice softened for a second, "couldn't do it."  
  
Spike smiled sadly, "Ed? I should have known. How is she holding up?"  
  
"She's gone," Maxim replied, a pang of sadness in his tone, "she slipped through our fingers."  
  
Spike smiled at Maxim, he was a good judge of character. He could recognize the eyes of a man in love.  
  
"You should watch the news more often."  
  
"Spike, we commissioned you one final time to get the microchip for us. Now, you must find Valentine before it is too late. Before Vassiliy---"  
  
"Let Vassiliy find her," Spike interrupted, "and in return I'll find Vassiliy. I have some unfinished business with him."  
  
"Spike, you don't mean---"  
  
"I do mean. If you want my help, you better not intervene. My life isn't worth much anymore. But the end of his means a great deal to me." Spike paused for a second. "It's like another reason to live."  
  
Messenger stared at Spike, the man he had known from childhood.   
  
"I'll find Faye," Spike said, "I'll get you what you need. But after that, you must keep your end of the promise as well. You will leave Faye, Edward, and me alone. If I find any implification otherwise, you know what will happen."  
  
Messenger nodded. Spike placed his hands in his pockets and carelessly strolled out of the room without turning back.  
  
Maxim watched Messenger in confusion.  
  
"What's this business about Vassiliy?" Maxim asked.  
  
"He killed his old partner," Messenger replied, "now, revenge is Spike's sole purpose to be alive. Same old rubbish."  
  
Maxim's eyes were wide, "Spike Spiegel, the legend. Who would have thought?"

* * *

Edward opened her eyes. A white ceiling fan rotated above her. She stared at it for a moment with confusion. Her limbs stirred, and she attempted to sit up from an unrecognized bed in which she was confined. Her joints felt as if they were about to ignite, and she murmured something she, herself, did not comprehend. She began to work herself up, moving gently the tips of her fingers and toes, rotating her neck. She saw a dark window, an empty flower vase on a table next to her. A footstool by the bed. She quivered a little and her body flailed again.  
  
"Where am I? What's this?" she asked herself audibly.   
  
It was then that she spotted Johnny Builder stirring in the corner of the room. He was asleep, but her voice had awakened him. Immediately, he rushed to her bedside.   
  
"Fran!" he exclaimed, taking her hand. She winced at his forcefulness over her brittle bones.  
  
"Johnny," she whispered, her eyes half closed, "what are you doing here?"  
  
"You were in an accident, Fran. You were in this condition for months. I was here all that time."  
  
She smiled briefly, "here? Where is here?"  
  
"The Mars Metropolitan Hospital, Francoise."  
  
"My name," she whispered, "is Ed."  
  
It all came back to her now. Johnny's stolen spaceship, the tanker. The crash. And all the rest was an array of lost pieces of time.  
  
"Oh, Fran," Johnny whispered, "I love you, Fran. Please come home with me. I turn eighteen next month. I can get a job at a garage, fix spaceships. We can have a family, Franny, if you agree to marry me."  
  
She smiled again, "Johnny, you had best get going. Forget about me. I have a feeling I won't be free for a while. Not with all the hospital bills I must have rung up."  
  
"I paid them all," he said, "I've been working, Fran. All for you."  
  
Her eyes widened, "help me up, Johnny, come one."  
  
He pushed her back up gently and she felt a moment of mind-numbing pain. But then it was dullness again.  
  
"Don't call me ungrateful," she said quietly, "I'll pay you back every penny."  
  
"No need!" he exclaimed, "Fran, don't you understand?"  
  
"Ed!" she screamed, "my name is Ed!"  
  
He stared at her quietly.  
  
"The Dragons!" she suddenly remembered. Maxim. "Johnny, were there men looking for me?"  
  
"How did you know?" he asked, "just this morning someone came asking for you. The hospital wouldn't let them up. They only let me in because I paid for you."  
  
Edward raised to her feet, ignoring the pain it caused. She almost trampled to the floor, but, keeping her composure, ran to the door. Johnny chased after her but was too late. She ran, bumping into nurses and patients alike, towards the elevator. Most were transfixed by a half-naked trauma patient rushing through the corridor, but did nothing to stop her. When Edward reached the first floor, she hid behind a plant and watched through its branches a group of men in dark suits populating the sitting are of the front desk. She recognized one of them, and it was like a kick in the stomach. Maxim. Still beautiful, still so profoundly beautiful.  
  
She remembered how much she had been in love.  
  
But it didn't matter anymore. She ran back into the elevator and raised to her previous floor where she found Johnny waiting for her.  
  
"We have to get out of here!" she screamed, "you have to help me get out of here."  
  
"No," Johnny shook his head. "This is insanity."  
  
"A spaceship," she screamed, "do you have a spaceship?"  
  
"If you can call it that, but---" he suddenly understood her line of reasoning, "No, not again. I learn from my mistakes. No way am I---"  
  
She leapt into his arms and planted a kiss on his lips, a sweet moistness of her mouth meeting with his unexpected tongue. He closed her eyes and felt her closeness for a moment. His hands found their way to her waist and pressed her petite body into his broad, muscled plane.   
  
"Let's go," he said, despite himself.   
  
Hand in hand, they ran to the stairs. Opening the door, they tore through the parameter and began to descend quickly. Ed's ankle twisted slightly and she did her best to ignore it. It was little luck. She jumped, trailing her bad leg behind her. Johnny noticed after a while, and lifted her into his strong arms. They moved rapidly down the stairs as one before emerging in the front lobby of the hospital. They kept quiet then, moving ever so slightly toward the exit, trying to slip past the men in suits. It was Maxim who had turn at that moment and see Ed in a blue hospital gown, holding hands with a stranger and running through the rotating glass door. He rushed after them into the parking lot. The pair disappeared into a midst of automobiles and ships. He found his way quickly through a maze, rushing after his mark, before he emerged onto a small landing strip, where Ed stood alone, facing him with her back.   
  
He walked to her. The wind was playing in her hair and the city was quieter than his own, shallow breathing. She turned to him and smiled, a sad and beautiful smile.  
  
"Hi, Maxim," she said lightly.  
  
"Hi, Ed," he replied.  
  
"How are things?" she asked.  
  
"Not so good."  
  
There was more he had to say, to admit. But he was afraid to until the end. Until it was too late.  
  
A piece of metal excuse for a ship landed in front of Ed. The stranger was driving.   
  
Edward smiled her smile, that characteristic, careless, childhood smile. "Aloha!" she screamed and got into the ship. Maxim watched her fly away, feeling bits of his existence dissolving with her in the horizon.

* * *

Edward and Johnny watched the wall of an empty parking lot. It was silent for a while, only the sound of the old engine was running. Ed sighed for a moment, and then turned to Johnny.  
  
"I have to find my friend," she said softly, "if that's all right with you."  
  
He nodded, "would it even matter?"  
  
"Of course," she said quietly  
  
They were silent again.  
  
"You didn't mean anything by it, did you?" he asked.  
  
"By what?"  
  
"That kiss."  
  
"Oh," Ed paused, "I'm sorry."  
  
"That man, the one that was chasing us---was he---"  
  
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I don't want to be ungrateful. I'm sorry."  
  
She turned her head to him and placed her hand on his cheek. She traced it slowly over his lips and down to neck, and then lower still to his heart. It was pounding. She closed her eyes and listened for a second to the prolongued concerto of his rhythm. He sighed loudly, closing his own eyes as well. Ed slid over the shift of the ship and crouched by Johnny's lap. She sat, pressing Johnny between her legs, warmth against his sudden excitement. She licked his ear and looked into his eyes, smiling sadly.   
  
"Don't," he whispered, "not because you're thanking me."  
  
"I'm sorry," she moaned, "so sorry."  
  
He closed his palms against her hips and dug his fingers into her flesh. Then, he ran his hand up her spinal chord and undid the ties of her hospital gown, removing it entirely and throwing it aside. Ed wore nothing underneath. He buried his face in her small breasts; she kissed the crown of his head, smelling his hair. She unstrapped his belt and unzipped the fly, exposing his erect penis. Wrapping her hand around it, she kissed him again.   
  
"Are you a virgin?" she whispered.  
  
"No," he replied, "are you?"  
  
She gave no response. He melted in her essence.

* * *

Somewhere on Mars, Maxim was still remembering how it had felt that rainy afternoon, when Ed was in his arms. 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15

"Where do we go from here?" Jonny asked Ed in a figurative and literal sense.

Their lovemaking subsided, the rushing pulse of the spaceship and the veins. Their young bodies heaved away from one another, no longer aching for inexplicably immediate gratification. She was still partially unclothed when he asked her the question. Bare and protruding were her naked flesh and soul.

"Well," she paused, "that's like asking what are my hopes and dreams."

"What are your hopes and dreams?"

She smiled, "I'll tell you when I figure it out."

He nodded, well aware she would not lie. Ed's situation suddenly became apparent to Jonny, and he pitied her a little.

"You know, Ed, something about your eyes."

She nodded, as if he had found the answer to the universe.

-------

For Faye Valentine, life was business as usual. Getting drunk in a seedy bar, full of seedy people.

Unhappy. That was what she had become. She no longer denied her feelings, her purposes. She attempted to piece together the information she had received earlier to an avail she wished she did not have to arrive at. She had a microchip implanted into her wrist which was a link to funds capable of reforming the Red Dragons. Dark men were after her, presumably after this very chip. Her husband had told her to consult YAN, which was precisely what she meant to do. What, then, stopped her from giving herself up right away? She contemplated her decisions, and the only reason she could fathom was a bleak one.

The Red Dragons had tried to kill Spike. They would strike once more, if given enough power. She couldn't bear losing him again.

But had she not already lost him? She must have, but only now did the reality of the fact that "she lost him" begin to sink in. I lost him, I lost him, I lost him, sang her mind. When she ran away that night, leaving behind her verbose good-bye letter, so unlike her usual self, she thought that it was he who had lost her. Deep within, she was filled with a galvanizing desire that he would seek her out again, pour his heart out, swear that he had forgotten about Julia, and take her in his arms. But was it fair to feed herself on miracles?

She drank.

It was there in that bar that for a moment, for a brief pitfall in time, she remembered that she had loved him. Loved him the way some people love their mothers; the way a dreamer loves the stars; as if, the way she wished he could have held her could lift her off the ground to which she was compelled by the laws of gravity. Loved him like a crisp autumn day, like fleeting happiness, the gossamer wings of enchanted human crimes. Loved him like she was ready to break into song, or kiss somebody empty, empty places. Loved him the way a human being can love a human being, needed him the way he'd never understand. All at that moment, that little moment, that little drift through the perverse tundra of time.

She drank.

No matter her love for Spike, Faye knew it wasn't only he that challenged her desire to drop the chip and run. The Red Dragons, a deadly, bloody crime Syndicate. Destruction of the innocent, exploitation, terror. Did she want all that on her conscience? If she had been her old self, she might have shrugged and took time as it were. But she was not her old self, Spike had changed her. He had changed her with words, simple words.

"You're better disappointing people, at never keeping your promises, standing up for what you believe, or taking responsibility for your foolish actions. You're better at being afraid, being afraid of anything that requires any human sensitivity or dignity," he had said to her with his familiar fire the last time they were together. She believed what he said. She accepted it as truth. Only later would she begin to question him, only later would she wonder if human beings could change. She was young and beautiful inside when she died in a space shuttle accident. When she was reborn, she retained the qualities. They must have still lingered within her: Righteousness, Courage, Responsibility. Maybe she didn't have these qualities at all. Maybe she could develop them, prove to Spike that there was more to her than she let on. Prove to Spike that she was a new person, that she had all that he must have loved in Julia.

She knew she had to rid herself of the chip in her veins. She knew she had to destroy it, with it destroying the Red Dragons legacy. She knew it would cost her life. She didn't care.

Faye was aware that Spike would never come back. He would never love her, never care. She was prepared for that heartbreak. All she wanted before dying was to prove to him that he was wrong about her. She wanted to prove that she was basicly good, as all humans are at birth. She needed him to know what he had meant to her, even if she hadn't meant the same to him.

She drank, and as she drank, she thought "Like that old song."

It was about a woman who had loved a man like happiness, a man who, just like happiness, did not love her. And all she ever wanted out of life, was to walk a few steps along the edge of his fate. Just to leave a mark, no matter how insignificant. To be, no matter her lopsidedness, upon the horizon of his life. To mean. Just to walk a little ---just a little bit---along the edge of his fate.

And she couldn't help still feeling that she lost him, even though she never had him in the first place.

--------

"You wanted to run away," Jonny said, "for this."

They were swinging in the wee hours of rolling days. A drunken haze of playgrounds. If anything, the simple minded hiss of distant voices. And of course, the stars.

The powdered evening, made more opalescent still by the sea of lit abdomens that encircled them. The respective shoes of their respective feet dug into the mossy ground beneath their respective frames as Jonny and Ed tried to mitigate the frantic rocking of the silly little swings. The trees lined the little kingdom like chivalrous knights. Chivalry is dead, she'd say.

And oh, that green grass gown of Mother Nature!

Within the rite of passage dream, they swung. Swung like mortality was chasing them. Like the droopy smile of lustful sunset deepened their many physical and metaphorical unbandaged scars.

"For this," he repeated, his tone not reprehensible but rather understanding. Was this beauty what life was all about? An empty playground on a beautiful summer night. Divine innocence, made even more divine because, despite the misconceptions, it never really disappeared. It lived on in the chambers of hearts of every human being. Loss of innocence is an oxymoron, she'd say.

"Tell me where we go from here, Ed," he said, demandingly now, "tell me or I'll have to walk away."

She sighed, extending her hand and spreading her palm as if to feel the velvet sky. She could sense the very fabric of the stars as they sifted through her fingers. In the moonlight, her skin was happiness and her soul was freedom, but she knew full well that he would give up the dream if she didn't offer him a platefull of reality. In a funny sort of way, she wanted him in her life.

"Ed and Jon-person must find Faye-Faye," she said with a smile, "Ed must help Faye-Faye before the Dark Men come."

-----

"Company?" said a deep, kind voice of a man. She turned franticaly to see Spike's face.

It wasn't there. It was, instead, the antithesis to Spike. A handsome young man with blue eyes and blonde hair was smiling at her. His facial expression was warm and comforting, and for a moment, she couldn't breathe altogether. She regained her frantic thought, however, and gave him a cool look of indifference. He did not believe her mannerism and continued staring in his aloof way at her shaking lips.

"Can I help you?" she asked coolly, still glaring with her hungry eyes.

"You always this friendly?" the stranger asked. She stared at the intensity of his gaze, somehow enchanted. He was as pale as daylight, and his eyes were cold, yet it incited a warmness within her frame. She contemplated his dry lips, that she almost wished to feel upon hers, anything to keep her from crying out how much she hated that he wasn't Spike.

"Of course not."

He smiled, "Then something must be up?"

She thought for another moment whether or not to open up to this kind and beautiful stranger. As well him as any, she concluded.

"You can say that," Faye revealed. The simple statement was harder to utter than any that would follow.

"Falling out with a boyfriend?" it was as if he hit a nail on the head, though an incorrect one at that.

Faye grunted.

"Hmm...a friend then?" the stranger continued.

"Friends?" she shuddered, "who needs them?" It was then that she remembered a similar conversation that she once had with a different beautiful stranger. Back when things were still the same. Back when the Bebop still existed. "Who has them nowadays?" she added.

"I do," was his simple response.

She nodded,"Oh."

"I take it you don't?" he asked.

"Can't say I do. Nor do I want any. Friends are trouble, 'cause in the end, they look out for themselves. So I hand my trust over on a silver platter, only to see someone's back as they walk away from me. To go and discover themselves...all this hypothetically speaking, of course. So it is best to be alone. Loneliness is warm, you know. That's a real misconception."

"But it must be hard sometimes, at least when you want a conversation."

"Conversation is overrated," she said, "you can talk to a person for hours without ever saying anything. It's just a way to...fill up empty space. No, no. Conversation is irrevelant in the real world. It's quiet that human beings really need. It's being able to look into someone's eyes and hear more than their voice could ever allow."

She paused, closing her eyes and seeing Spike's image imprinted on her retina. His quiet look, the last one he gave her before he went to fight Vicious. "Look into my eyes," he had said to her, and when she did, she no longer needed to hear much of anything else. She only needed to look into his eyes. His eyes.

"Dialogue means very little in the general scheme of things," she mused, "The only tongue humans ever need to know is---the language of silence---what is proclaimed by the eyes, not the vocal chords."

That's all.

------

"Do you love me, Julia?" Spike asked her once.

Gwen closed her eyes and wrapped her legs around her insufficient blankets. She tossed and turned, remembering the past---or perhaps the future?

And with a sigh, she drifted into a memory.

He smiled again. The same warm smile. They went on making polite conversation that felt like making love. She was suddenly sprawled over her bed, her conservative blouse unbuttoned, innocent eyes staring at his ravenous demeanor as he buried his hands in the locks of her hair. She prepared for penetrations (the mind and the vulva), and whispered a sweet "no" she was well aware he would ignore, as she wanted him to. And after he taught her the fusion of cognitive aptitudes and overlapping of cocked erectility in all its puissant glory, they were suddenly dressed again and staring at each other with their raving, loudmouth loins over the oceanic stretch of her imitation-oak kitchen table.  
  
He handed her a vial of red eye as if he was offering her happiness, and their hearts momentarily touched with the coming-together of their decorative sleeves. His periphrastic dialect reverberated up her vertebrate (to think this jubilation was verbatim) and into the very core of her profuse inhibitionism. He said his short farewell (the shorter the better, for long farewells infuse wells of tears and only fools find tragedy amusing) and walked out of her apartment as if he was walking out of her life. As she heard the melodic malady of the shutting door to the chambers of the building and the heart, she tingled with a breathtaking, miniature agony and foreboding. Momentarily, the clock announced midnight and apocalypse.  
  
And then Spike asked her, "Do you love me, Julia?"

"Vicious," she had replied.

He supposed it was her fear that drove her to say such a name at such a time. He was only partially correct. Did Julia love Spike? Perhaps. The way a dreamer loved the stars, the way the sun loved the earth, the way the moon loved the ceiling. But Vicious. She loved him in her own way, the unhealthy sort of way in which she knew that love would hurt her but never gave up seeking it. She loved Vicious like she loved death, like she loved her father, like she loved the universe and all of its intricacies. She loved Vicious like sin, and Spike like her salvation.

She half-loved them both because, when together, they were one. Tango for three? Oh but it was really tango for one. Julia, Spike, and Vicious were each one third of a human being. Each dependent one one another in a symbiotic usage ritual. No wonder a rift in the system of one had caused a domino effect in the others. But Vicious, Spike, and Julia were gone. Vicious was dead, Spike was a heartless monster, and Julia had become Gwen.

Gwen knew Spike was alive. She had been told by her last connection in the syndicate, a man named James Shields. He was the one responsible for her wretched life in the first place. It was he that arrived to Anastasia's and found Julia with a bullet in her back some moments after Spike had departed in hopelessness and before Vicious arrived with his subordinates after having taken over the syndicate. It was he that secretly transferred her to a hospital on a distant star and later established her identity as Gwen the waitress on a forlorn asteroid. And then he died, and Julia knew why he died. She also knew that Spike had been saved as well, and had spent nearly two years in hiding on Ganymede, where he led a life of self-destructive futility, consuming recreational drugs like oxygen and wishing he were dead like she and Vicious. Spike, unlike Julia, was not told of the living third. It was Julia's idea. She asked Shields to keep her existence private; she didn't want Spike to know. Their love had caused too much trouble in the past.

So, Gwen continued living like one third of a human being on a dirty asteroid.

-----------

Faye was drunk, and to the farthest extent of her knowledge, the beautiful stranger was taking her somewhere. She leaned on his shoulder, closing her eyes in a friendly and friendless abandon. He pulled his arms around her waist and moved her body in conjunction to his out of the bar and into the dark street. They continued walking for several moments, broken streetlights only shading their perilous journey of meters, before Faye stopped for a moment and stared into his eyes.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked quietly.

He nodded.

"I'm drunk."

They continued walking before a parked spaceship appeared before their very eyes. The stranger tried to move her through the door. It was there that Faye came to her senses.

"No!" she exclaimed, "I don't want to go in there!"

"Yes you do," he said kindly.

"No! I don't!" she screamed.

"Yes you do!" he screamed back.

Faye noticed the hardness of his grip on her flesh. She began fighting to get out, throwing her arms up, dropping like dead weight on the floor and trying to kick him with her legs. He was quicker, pulling her up and slapping her accross the face until she was nearly unconscious. Faye stopped putting up a fight and felt him load her feeble body into the ship and prop it up against a cold metal wall.

She saw his dark outline against the dimly lit street that portruded through the open door. It looked so familiar, she thought.

"Hello, Miss Valentine," the dark man said and Faye began to shudder.

The door behind him closed, and after that---darkness.


End file.
